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THE 



WRITERS OF GENESIS 



AND RELATED TOPICS, ILLUSTRATING 
DIVINE REVELATION. 



Rev. E. COWLEY, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF " BIBLE GROWTH AND RELIGION," " GOD IN CREATION," AND 
* " GOD ENTHRONED IN REDEMPTION." 



God spake unto Noah, and to his sons, and to Abraham, this covenant." 

SEP 291890 

NEW YORK: '*&&! 

THOMAS WHITTAKER^ 
2 and 3 Bible House. 
1890. 






COPTRIGHT, 1890, BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



When abroad, in 1872, I read in the Daily Tele- 
graph Mr. George Smith's Chaldean Account of 
the Creation, which he had just deciphered. Pre- 
vious knowledge of Layard's discoveries enabled me 
to estimate their importance, and to continue the 
study of Oriental discoveries. So, in 1879, I ven- 
tured to give a brief series of sermons on the Re- 
ligion and Learning of Egypt in the era of Moses, 
in the Church of the Heavenly Rest, JNew York. 

A few years later, Mr. Spencer, in his " Ecclesi- 
astical Institutions," struck off the roots of the 
Divine in Religion. As no one else appeared to 
answer him, I felt bound (God being my helper) to 
examine and refute him, or yield to the inevitable. 

In some other papers 1 have ventured to defend 
the Revelation of the Old Testament against the 
gross naturalism of Renan and the negative criticism 
of Kuenen and Wellhausen. Thus I have traversed 
some crucial points from Genesis to the Prophecies 
of our Lord. 

This may best explain why I presume to add to 
what has been so ably — in some instances so fool- 
ishly — written upon the Origin of Genesis. I can 



IV PREFACE. 

but think that the reader will here find that the last 
word had not been said, and that the application of 
modern discoveries to the Oracles of God will flash 
the new light of His providence across them, and 
enable us to determine who were the writers of 
Genesis and of some other books. 

The Right Rev. Bishop Perry, of Iowa, a most 
competent witness, reports that some members of 
the last Pan- Anglican Council had doubts of por- 
tions of the Bible, notably Genesis, which illustrates 
the importance of the subject now considered. To 
them, and to all seekers after the truth, I commend 
what is here offered : to Professors Green and Har- 
per, Bissell and Briggs, Cave and Cheyne, Dods and 
Driver, and all other Bible students. While I pre- 
sume not to instruct them, I may suggest that the 
more they yield to negative criticism, the greater is 
the danger to be apprehended from it. Though the 
old traditions may be wrong, they do not err in im- 
plying a very ancient date for the Writers of Gene- 
sis, and an early writer of Isaiah 40-66. 

My suggestions of authorship are not based on 
Astruc, who died in 1766. He was a physician, not 
a Bible expositor. That his theory should form the 
basis of so much modern criticism surprises me. 
" God is His own Interpreter" of Revelation and 
of Creation. The discoveries and decipherments of 
our generation supply abundant reasons for believing 
that four or five early patriarchs wrote their own 
memoirs. These were incorporated into our Gene- 



PREFACE. V 

sis by Moses, and later prophets explained names of 
persons and places. 

This idea I have worked out by careful analysis 
and examination of various facts brought to light by 
the Egypt Exploration Fund and other Oriental so- 
cieties. Professor Sayce corrects Henan. The lit- 
eratures of the oldest nations sustain my view ; a 
decent respect for the opinions of mankind supports 
it ; the culture and good sense of the covenant- 
patriarchs support it. It honors Inspiration and 
God, the Revealer. 

The essay on the Scientific Method Applied to 
the Bible is the outcome of reading Mr. John Bur- 
roughs's article in a late North American Review / 
Babylonians and Egyptians, not Totemists, was 
evoked by recent lectures under the auspices of 
Columbia College, and by W. Robertson Smith ; 
Hebrew and Greek Ethics was to correct Mr. Glad- 
stone's third paper upon Holy Scripture. If my 
aim has been high, I trust I have been enabled to 
reach the mark. 

May the Enlightening Spirit guide us all unto a 
right conclusion. The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. The Writers of Genesis 9 

§ 1. What we Seek 9 

§ 2. What we Find 11 

§ 3. Abraham Distinguishes Jehovah from the God of 

Melchizedek 16 

§ 4. New Testament Authority 19 

§ 5. Writing in the Fourth Millennium b. c 29 

§ 6. Knowledge at the Time of the Deluge 38 

§ 7. In Egypt and Babylonia 43 

§ 8. The Tower of Babel 50 

§ 9. Summary of Points 51 

§ 10. Memoirs of Abraham 56 

§ 11. Destruction of Sodom in Accadian Legends 64 

§ 12. Some Domestic Events 67 

§ 13. Memoirs of Isaac 74 

§14. Jacob's Memoirs 81 

§ 15. Memoirs of Judah 88 

§ 16. Conclusion 96 

IE. The Writer of Isaiah 40 to 66 103 

IIL The Scientific Method Applied to the Bible 139 

IV. Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians not Totemists. .168 
V. Mr. Gladstone on Hebrew and Greek Ethics 180 



THE WRITERS OF GENESIS 

AND 

RELATED TOPICS. 



I. 
THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Section 1. — What we seek. 

I shall endeavor in these pages to put the aver- 
age reader in possession of the facts and methods 
whereby he can determine who were the probable 
writers of the first book of the Bible. Men now 
talk learnedly about the Hexateuch, thus massing 
together that they may afterward pulverize the first 
six books of Holy Scripture. But it is of chief im- 
portance to know if there were not a Primus or First 
Book, before the redaction of what Moses revised. 

Our investigation proposes to show that there was 
a Primer which Abraham learned, and later prefixed 
to his Memoirs ; and that these Memoirs were con- 
tinued by Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. From them we 
obtain the substance of our Genesis ; so, even after 
the revision by Moses, may be discovered differences 
of style in those early writers. 

Thus we may learn whence arose those distinc- 
1* 



10 THE WKITEKS OF GENESIS. 

tions in the use of certain names for the Deity, 
whicli no late writer would have observed, but which 
indicate a contemporaneous writing. Thus, too, 
primitive names of places occur here and there, 
which were subsequently changed to later ones. If 
we are charged with instructing our teachers, who 
are more learned than ourselves in such matters, we 
may answer, that is only what scholars often do who 
do their teachers honor. 

Indeed, all that may be adduced in favor of Moses 
being the original writer of Genesis, or of its being 
the work of several writers and redactors according 
to the critics, may be said in favor of the author- 
ship herein suggested. Abraham certainly, if not 
Noah, wrote the memoirs of his times ; while those 
who followed him added to and revised to date 
under the guidance and revelation of God. This 
largely accounts for the differences in style and 
treatment which now puzzle the critics. It is the 
key which unlocks the mystery of the authorship of 
Genesis. 

" No other book in existence of such varied styles, composed 
by so many hands, and occupying so long a period in its com- 
pilation is marked by so marvellous a unity. A single great 
scheme underlies, traverses, and interpenetrates the Bible, a 
great and connected system of truth, as bone and cartilage the 
human frame ; a single, high, gracious and inflexible aim per- 
vades this majestic volume from end to end. In principle and 
essence the faith of David and Paul, Daniel and John, Abraham 
and Peter is but one. Genesis and Revelation greet each other 
across the gulf of ages. God's word is a unit." — Rev. William 
T. Sabine. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 11 

" This sacred story, even without the assured and solemn 
authority which it derives from the inspired character of the 
Book in which it is found, should always form in sound criti- 
cism the base of all history ; for considered from a merely hu- 
man point of view, it contains the most ancient tradition as to 
the first days of the human race, the only one which has not 
been disfigured by the introduction of fantastic myths of dis- 
ordered imagination run wild." — M. Lenormant. 

The seeming purpose of its first chapters was to 
instruct man as to the process and Agent in Creation, 
so as to induce him to serve the God who made him, 
and to regard His saving methods. Though evi- 
dence is wanting that such an account was vouch- 
safed to the first men, Noah was fairly and Abra- 
ham more fully instructed in the origin of things 
and in Divine revelations. He by the inspiration 
of God was enabled to correct prevailing errors. 
Yet it was not given him to teach the absolute and 
ultimate truth, but what was fundamental touching 
matter and Spirit. 

§ II. — What we find. 

Thus we find that Genesis was not written to teach 
modern geology ; for the people to whom it was 
given would not have understood a scientific treatise. 
But the Creation account in Genesis was to set forth 
who was the Author of the Cosmos, rather than the 
precise order and method of it. As St. John says, 
" Without Him was not anything made that had 
been made." In other words, all material and ani- 
mal existences were by the creative power of God. 



12 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

The record is somewhat complex, jet brief. It 
at once meets and corrects the old Accadian and 
Zoroastrian ideas and legends of the origin of the 
Cosmos. Neither Tiamat nor Ahriman, as inde- 
pendent creative powers, had any part in the crea- 
tion of the "universe. There is just enough of detail 
recorded to remove current errors and to present 
God as the Creator and Upholder of all worlds and 
of all existences. The account of creation was to 
disclose the Creator. 

The earth was before those who lived upon it. 
Darkness was before the light and the sun was be- 
fore the moon, but both were by the Supreme Being 
who separated between the day and the night. Light 
and darkness, angels and archangels, good spirits and 
those who became evil spirits, were the creation of 
God. His work was perfect, " excellent." Why, 
then, Abraham might say to the men of Ur, do you 
worship the Moon God, or any created objects ? and 
to the men of Larsa, Why do you worship the Sun 
God, or any powers of nature ? Jehovah Elolrm 
was the Creator of matter and spirit, of the sun and 
the moon. Him alone should men worship, who is 
above all and who created all. Simply and chiefly 
to teach these two grand but elementary facts was 
the creation account in Genesis given to man. We 
are apt to impose too much upon it. 

" The history of the creation in Genesis is not 
merely a cosmogonic account of primitive date, but 
above all else it is an express counter statement op- 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 13 

posed to the conceptions of Egypt and of Babylon." 
Yon Ranke attributes this to Moses at Sinai, 
" which no terrestrial vicissitudes have ever touched, 
and where nothing interposes between God and the 
world." How, then, could Moses have had any 
knowledge of the Babylonian conception of the 
Cosmos ? But the universe, according to Mr. H. 
Spencer's sesquipedalian definition, is the outcome 
of " a change from an indefinite, incoherent homo- 
geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity through 
continuous differentiations and integrations." 
Whereupon says Mr. Gold win Smith, " This uni- 
verse may well have heaved a sigh of relief when, 
through the cerebration of an eminent thinker, it 
had been delivered of this account of its origin." 

The second chapter sets forth the institution of 
the Sabbath, describes the abode of man upon his 
creation, his conscious superiority to the creatures 
about him, and how God made woman to be his 
helper and companion in life. The two were not 
an outgrowth or development from other creatures, 
but the creation of God, who brought them together 
and blessed them. They were to replenish the earth. 

Genesis 2 : 15-25 relate how, after the creation of 
man, he was put in the Garden of Eden to dress and 
to keep it. This, of course, implies the imparta- 
tion of needful instruction to him. Large liberty 
was allowed him, and only one prohibition was im- 
posed : he must not eat of the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil. Abraham was familiar with such 



14 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

legends, and that man was divinely instructed as to 
his duty. 

Adam was also tested whether he was capable of 
choosing a companion from among all the creatures 
to whom he gave names ; the choice and the naming 
suggest considerable intelligence. But Adam did 
not find an " answering" companion in all the liv- 
ing beings which passed before him. No female 
gorilla or chimpanzee would please his fancy. 

Who but an anti-evolutionist could write the ac- 
count of the creation of woman at that time ? She 
is made for man, and brought to him as his help- 
meet in life. He was an intelligent observer of 
much that passed, and there was no " almost a 
woman" among the creatures he had named. He 
had skill, order, and analysis. He may even have 
learned to write the account of his education and of 
Eve's creation before he died. Quite likely it was 
written before the Deluge, and preserved to the 
times of Abraham, or of the legends of Ur. They 
at least taught that God was the Creator and In- 
structor of man, and that he had sinned against 
Him. Of how they worshipped Him, the great 
temple at Ur to the Moon God bore witness. See 
" Chaldean Account in Genesis," Sayce's " Hibbert 
Lectures" and Dr. Cave's " Inspiration of the Old 
Testament." 

If we regard the first chapters of Genesis as the 
Inspired account to Abraham rather than a revela- 
tion to Moses, we find it just such a version as a 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 15 

man in that age would give to the people of his day 
and to those who followed him. But to make it a 
Revelation to Moses three thousand years after the 
creation of man, and for the science of the nine- 
teenth century, is to put a meaning upon the record 
which was not intended when first communicated. 

" Science," says Professor J. D. Dana, has made no real prog- 
ress toward proving that the Divine act was not required for 
the creation of Man. No remains of ancient Man have been 
found that indicate a progenitor of lower grade than the lowest 
of existing tribes ; none that show any less of the erect pos- 
ture and other essential characteristics of the exalted species. 
Made in the image of God, Man was capable of moral distinc- 
tions and of spiritual progress ; and hence with him began a 
new era in history," viz., human accountability and immor- 
tality for the crowning work of creation. Surely being made 
in the image of God implies eternal existence? — 0. and JV". 
Test. Student for August, 1890, pp. 94, 95. 

Chapter third relates how man sinned, the penalty 
inflicted, how a Redeemer was promised, and the 
expulsion from Eden. That this account was re- 
vealed to Abraham may be inferred from the cor- 
rections of prevailing errors. Not in Noah's time 
had the Babylonians come to speak of Merodach as 
their Saviour, nor had the men of Ur and of Larsa 
become worshippers of the heavenly bodies. But 
they each were this respectively when Abraham 
was called out of Chaldea. Thus a revelation of 
what was to come and of what men ought to do was 
given for instruction in righteousness as well as in 
knowledge. The account suffers greatly by being 



16 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

relegated to the time of Moses. To Abraham it was 
disclosed how man had failed in his first trial in 
Eden, and in his longer trial in the world before the 
deluge. He was himself a witness of the idolatry 
in his day among the peoples about the Euphrates. 
Merodach had failed to save the Babylonians ; Osiris 
had failed to save the Egyptians, and Sosiosh had 
failed to save the Iranians. Thus the supposed 
saviours of Hamites, of Semites, and of Aryans had 
alike failed in saving those representative peoples. 

Wherefore the Creator of all chose Abraham to 
found a new family for the preservation of the true 
religion among men, and to prepare the world for 
the Advent of its Redeemer. To Abraham also it 
was given to understand why he was thus chosen, and 
the right of Him who had chosen him. Such a 
revelation was needed for his instruction and future 
guidance. So in Canaan and in Egypt he never 
fell into idolatry, and in Gen. 14 : 19-22 he 
finely distinguishes between Melchizedek's (i God 
Most High" and" Jehovah, God Most High." It 
appears in the Revised Version, and marks the differ- 
ence between the Covenant God of the chosen peo- 
ple and the god or gods of the Gentiles. 

§ III. — Abraham distinguishes Jehovah from the 
God of Melchizedek. 

We need not go further than Gen. 14 to learn that 
it was not originally written by Moses. Melchize- 
dek said, " Blessed be God Most High, which hath 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 17 

delivered thine enemies into thy hand." " And 
Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up 
mine hand unto the Zord, God Most High, posses- 
sor of heaven and earth" (verses 20 and 22 of Re- 
vised Version). To suppose that the nice distinction 
of adding Jehovah, the Lord, to the name of Mel- 
chizedek's God, to designate the God of Abraham, 
would have been handed down orally for five or six 
hundred years without understanding the strong 
reason for it, or to suppose that it was all revealed 
to Moses together with all other instances of Divine 
revelations and religious distinctions, amid the des- 
erts of Sinai, is to my mind the top of folly and 
critical indiscretion. 

I invite the proof that the writer of Ex. 6 : 
2-4 was the writer of Gen. 14 : 20, 22. He must 
have been nodding ! And the difficulty here aris- 
ing, I explain thus : Abraham and his fathers for 
the first sixty years of his life were worshippers of 
the heavenly bodies. Joshua 24 : 2 decides this as 
well as contemporary history, " Beyond the River, 
your fathers served other gods. " Now make the 
pronoun " them" in Ex. 6 : 3 refer to those fathers 
and to Abraham during the first sixty years of his 
life, and it is literally true that none of them knew 
their God or gods by the name of Jehovah. Even 
to Isaac and Jacob new revelations of Him were 
given at the Mount of Sacrifice and at the flight of 
Jacob. The narrative implies that neither of them 
had clear ideas of Jehovah till He more fully re- 



18 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

vealed Himself. See this in Gen. 22 : 1-9, and 
note the recurrence of Jehovah in verses 11-18. 
, Moreover, it was not the purpose of Exodus to 
trace the progress and unfold the methods of reve- 
lation. Some matters once known had become for- 
gotten in large measure ; and Abraham and his sons 
may never have understood the full import of the 
Divine name when disclosed to them at the first. 
With all his knowledge, even Moses did not know 
it. Thus he saw the similarity of his position with 
that of his forefathers in this respect. 

Of the many expositions of these passages, that 
now offered satisfies the requirements of the text 
and the judgment of the writer. It is conclusive 
of different writers, and the critics claim a high 
antiquity for Gen. 14. It was not orally trans- 
mitted during several centuries, nor was it a new 
revelatiou to Moses ; but it was written by Abraham. 
He certainly had no motive to misstate anything in 
writing his memoirs. Little by little he received 
Divine revelations in Palestine, but he had lived 
there twenty-four years before he received circum- 
cision, and he knew not what next would be re- 
quired. It proved to be the promise of Isaac, and 
the relief of Lot in Sodom. There was nothing like 
the development of a theory of religion, but it mostly 
pertained to family affairs, and needed only a truth- 
ful scribe. Its slow growth marks the unfolding of 
revelation to Abraham. 

Professor W. W: Martin's is a striking illustration 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 10 

of a criticism which overlooks the point to be ob- 
served. He appears not to see that A brain's God 
was all that Melchizedek and the king of Sodom 
recognized, and as much more as was implied by the 
addition of the name Jehovah by Abram, Jahveh, 
the ever-living God Most High. So, later in the 
records, Joseph .realized that Jahveh was his Pro- 
tector, Guide, and Deliverer ; yet when he was ap- 
proached by a wanton woman he reminds her of her 
God, El or Ra, whom she acknowledged ; but not 
of his covenant Jahveh. As well say that Joseph 
then denied Him, as that Abram was in danger of 
making such a denial. (See Old and New Testa- 
ment Student for July, 1890, pp. 46, 47.) 

§ IY. — New Testament Authority. 

We have also a New Testament reason for our 
suggestion of early patriarchal memoirs. Thus St. 
Stephen explicitly told his hearers that Moses sup- 
posed that his brethren understood how that God 
by his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts 7 : 
25, Revised Version). Add to this what Moses said 
of himself, that 'when he was grown up he visited his 
brethren, looked on their burdens, and smote the 
Egyptian who was smiting a Hebrew. Again he 
went out, and behold two men of the Hebrews 
strove together : and he said to him that did the 
wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow ? And 
he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over 
us ? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the 



20 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Egyptian ? And Moses feared, for Pharaoh sought 
to slay him, and he fled from his face, and dwelt in 
the land of Midian. In other words, rejected by 
his own kinsmen and pursued by Pharaoh, he fled 
to the descendants of Abraham in the desert (Ex. 
2 : 11-15). 

He had been instructed in the learning of Egypt, 
of which his brethren knew little, and knew but lit- 
tle of their family and tribal history, nor that Jeho- 
vah had promised Abraham to bring them out of 
that land, with great substance (Gen. 15 : 14). But 
Moses had learned all this. Readers of the Speak- 
er's and other late commentaries, as well as recent 
lectures on Egypt, know somewhat of its arts and its 
literature, and are prepared to follow us in asking, 
Why did Moses suppose that his brethren understood 
that God would deliver them by him ? The records 
of his life do not inform us how he learned the his- 
tory of his own people. Not even his Hebrew 
mother and elder sister could have taught him all 
those ancient documents, many of which had be- 
come very scarce after those centuries in Egypt. 
And it is too much to assume that he found the his- 
tory of Israel among its literature. 

In the " Tale of the Two Brothers" he saw a 
version of the story of Joseph, and he may also have 
learned other details of the family of Jacob. Indeed, 
he may have read in Egyptian records an account of 
the visit of Abraham six or seven centuries before, 
and a list of the presents made him by the reigning 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 21 

Pharaoh. But it contained no word for him about 
Jehovah's covenant with the patriarch, nor about 
his being the chosen one of God to found a new 
nation which should prepare for the Messiah, nor 
that the predicted four hundred years had well-nigh 
passed, when Israel was to return to Caanan (Gen. 
15 : 16). 

Yet St. Stephen, who evidently spoke by Divine 
inspiration, clearly states that Moses supposed that 
God by his hand would deliver Israel. And it may 
have been the knowledge he had which prompted 
him to act precipitately in smiting that Egyptian. 
Moreover, if the tradition of his success as an Egyp ■ 
tian general going against her enemies were true, if 
the princess who had rescued him were dead, if a 
Pharaoh like Barneses II. was on the throne, who was 
jealous of Moses, a man of leisure and of influence 
about the court, then these were other reasons which 
might have led him to suppose that he was the one to 
deliver his countrymen, and lead them to the land of 
their fathers. But success under such conditions 
would have given a secular aspect to the Exodus, 
leaving no play for the Divine in the passage of the 
Red Sea, nor for the giving of the Law at Sinai. 
So his first attempt failed. 

Let us put ourselves in Moses's place. With all 
his knowledge of Egyptian literature, what could 
he know of the God of the Hebrews who had cove- 
nanted with Abraham ? What could he know of 
the most important parts of his people's history ? 



22 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

He was forty years old. He had not learned the 
lessons of the Desert, nor the lessons which Jethro 
taught him, nor the legends and traditions of the 
Midianites. But he was a man of intellectual activ- 
ity and capacity. In what, during the ten years of 
his life from thirty to forty, was he occupied ? St. 
Stephen's words must be remembered and account- 
ed for. Moses supposed that his brethren tender- 
stood (we must trace up the grounds for that sup- 
position and understanding) how that God by his 
hand was giving them deliverance ; but their con- 
duct showed that they understood not. Prophets 
had not arisen to tell them, and Moses himself had 
not then received his commission, nor been vouch- 
safed a Revelation to teach them ; and he anticipated 
the time and mistook the methods for the deliver- 
ance of his brethren from Egypt. But he had 
learned some things which were suggestive. 

How had Moses learned the history of his people, 
whereby he could be led into such a supposition ? 
For, according to the critical view, and even accord- 
ing to the traditional view of Genesis, this book was 
not then written. Did Moses, before the act which 
precipitated his flight, receive the patriarchal history 
which induced him to form his supposition from the 
direct inspiration of God — his precipitate conduct 
notwithstanding — or did he learn that history from 
the family records of the Hebrews ? In other 
words, was the Book of Genesis a Revelation • to 
Moses, or were the patriarchal portions of it family 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 23 

records made at the time of the events narrated ? 
Were the Divine voices, visions, and promises re- 
corded when first vouchsafed to man, or were they 
all left to be revealed a second time from God ? 

Consider the supposition of Moses before his com- 
mission ; consider that only one preacher of warn- 
ing was given to the antediluvians ; that only one 
grand pleading for Sodom is preserved to ns ; that 
only one prophet was sent to warn Nineveh, though 
other prophetic messages were sent ; that no new 
Table of the Law was made for the new Temple at 
Jerusalem after the return from exile ; that no sub- 
stitute for Divine worship was provided for the Ten 
Tribes after the disruption by Jeroboam, notwith- 
standing the apostasy which followed. So no new 
Revelation was made to the compiler of Genesis at 
the close of the patriarchal records which ended 
with the death and embalming of Joseph in 
Egypt. 

From Abraham to Moses was about six hundred 
years. During that time revelations were made from 
God, which were not repeated as revelations, for 
they had been carefully preserved in the Hebrew 
records, and only needed a correct copyist or an 
inspired commentator. Such copyist they had in 
Egypt, and Moses had obtained copies of those 
records by purchase long before his flight ; and he 
became an inspired commentator of them while in 
Midian, having been a diligent student of them, 
From such study he came to form the supposition 



24 THE WEITERS OF GENESIS. 

which St. Stephen attributed to him — i.e., from the 
study of the records of the patriarchs. 

My belief is, and I shall endeavor to show, that 
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and Joseph 
were the original writers of those portions of Gen- 
esis in which they appear as the active subjects. 
And it matters not upon this method of treatment 
who was the first redactor, according to the critics, 
nor whether E or J or P or R find any place in the 
early or late editions of the Book. But my treat- 
ment will assign to Moses the first editing of the 
records of Judah, which ended with the death of 
Joseph. In Egypt and in Midian he collected all 
the Hebrew records and traditions. They had 
kindled his enthusiasm and incited him to undue 
haste, when he slew the offending Egyptian. It 
was the outcome of the first active decade of his 
life. Then, with his literary treasures, he escaped 
from an indignant and angry court. 

We may believe that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh 
at this time, and was not disposed to look lightly on 
such an offence as that which Moses had committed. 
And the hiding the body of the Egyptian in the 
sand, where it was not to be seen, embalmed, and 
buried, was to deprive the dead of immortality. 
For however just his soul may have been, yet with- 
out his body, which could be preserved for three 
thousand years only by embalming, the Egyptian 
supposed immortality to be impossible. It aggra- 
vated the crime. The rage of Rameses II. against 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH, 25 

the Hyksos incited him to obliterate every trace of 
them from the region they had occupied for cen- 
turies. And M. Maspero has shown us the sculp- 
tures from which he had erased the Hyksos legends 
and inscribed those of himself instead. This alone 
is strong proof against the rhetoric of Renan, that 
the Hyksos were permitted to remain in Egypt and 
to fight the battles of the Hebrews in their oppres- 
sion ! No ; not even Moses himself felt safe till he 
had fled to the desert of Midi an. There he mar- 
ried the daughter of the priest-king ; there he 
learned other details and traditions of that branch 
of Abraham's descendants, and there, during his 
forty years' exile, he worked over and arranged for 
the Hebrew people the Book of Genesis as pre- 
served to us, from the earlier writings of the patri- 
archs. But he attempted no account of the resi- 
dence in Egypt. 

He was a learned man, an active man, a born 
leader of his people. His character when he fled 
from Pharaoh Rameses II. became more mature 
and ripe, and was permeated with the Divine Spirit 
when he returned and stood before Pharaoh Men- 
ephtah, saying, " Thus saith Jehovah, let my peo- 
ple Israel go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in 
the wilderness." It was not an unknown region, 
but the country from which the now duly commis- 
sioned leader had just returned after a memorable 
interview with the God of Abraham, and where for 
ages the Egyptians had mines which they worked, 
2 



26 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Such a man as that could not be content with tend- 
ing sheep for his father-in-law. His mind brood- 
ed over the past, over his former opportunity and 
mistakes, over the possibilities of the future ; and 
he was inspired by Jehovah to do His bidding. 
The time had now come. Rameses II., the pow- 
erful king, had died, and Menephtah reigned in his 
stead. Such are some of the well-attested facts of 
Moses's life and times. He personally was not a 
miracle, but, with the rod of God, was a worker of 
miracles. Like Elijah in a later age, he was hu- 
man, fed by daily food to nourish his body, and 
his soul was sustained by the Divine Spirit, while 
his mind was full of the history and appointed 
destiny of Israel. He knew that covenant promise 
in Gen. 15 : 13-18 ; that his people had been 
strangers and servants in Egypt for four hundred 
years ; that their oppressors were about to be judged, 
and that Israel should go forth with great substance. 
A mother's love had saved him for a great mission. 
A father's knowledge had been imparted to him. 
Family affection, the watchfulness of Miriam, the 
prophetic eloquence of Aaron, cherished him and 
centred around him. Thus Moses was instructed in 
Hebrew traditions as well as in Egyptian learning. 

Critics in various analyses and books upon Gen- 
esis object to the traditional views of its authorship. 
They claim to find diversity in style and treatment ; 
that some words are peculiar to each writer, espe- 
cially the names for Deity, etc. Beit so. Mysug- 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 27 

gestion of the patriarchal origin and writing of the 
first book of the Bible fully accounts for all existing 
differences of style and of verbal characteristics. I 
shall waste no words upon the orthography, syntax, 
or grammar of the writers. Possibly some of them 
never learned to conjugate a Hebrew verb. They 
have been described as writing in a style now free 
and flowing, now concise and rigid, now using stories 
and traditions, now picturesque, poetical, prophetic 
in their delineations. And if we allow several 
writers and revisers of the first nine chapters, fol- 
lowed by Abraham for his portion, by Isaac for his 
register, by Jacob for his records and visions, by 
Judah for the continuance and completion of the his- 
tory and of the story of Joseph, and by Moses as the 
inspired redactor and reviser of the whole into what 
is substantially our present Book of Genesis, we 
shall find ample room for verbal variations in sec- 
tions, for differences in style, for some explanatory 
words and sentences, while all is duly authenticated. 
It was a progressive writing during seven hundred 
years. 

I am quite aware that such a suggestion, if made 
thirty years ago, would have been regarded as ab- 
surd, having no grounds to rest upon. Indeed, 
when a youth I maintained the affirmative in more 
than one discussion of the question whether Hoses 
could write ! Now, however, my theme requires 
probable proof and illustration that Abraham could 
write ; that Isaac could write his treat v with Abim- 



28 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

elech, for example ; that Jacob recorded Lis visions 
at Beth-el and Peniel ; and that Judah of the signet 
ring was the Scribe of his people. The method 
must be largely inductive. However, I shall first 
state the reasons and grounds on which my sugges- 
tion is based. 

The point at which we start and to which we 
must return is the probability that Abraham could 
read and write. Modern research has discovered 
the temple in which he worshipped, the name of 
the god he adored, and the Psalm of adoration 
which for forty years he chanted. The temple 
was that of Sin, the male moongod of Ur, and the 
prayer psalm is not only devout, but it suggests the 
style of some theological parts of Genesis ; and that 
the man who early learned that prayer was the 
writer of certain Divine names. 

We also find on the bricks of the lower stage of 
the great temple the inscribed name of King Urukh 
or Ligbagas who built it. He also built the wall of 
Ur. It was the most ancient capital of Accad, and 
was a sacred city distinguished for its learning. 
This hymn to its patron deity was written in Acca- 
dian and Assyrian, on a tablet now in the British 
Museum. I give part of it, as rendered in Tom- 
kins's " Times of Abraham." Professor Sayce 
translates it in the u Hibbert Lectures" for 1887. 
"We may imagine Abraham singing : 

* ' Lord ! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is 
exalted ! 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 29 

Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! good god, of gods 

the prince ! 
Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! great god, of gods 

the prince ! 
Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord god of the month, of 

gods the prince ! 
Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord of Ur, of gods the 

prince ! 
Father mine, of life the giver, cherishing, beholding all ! 
Lord, who power benign extendeth over all the heaven and 

earth ! 
Seasons, rains, from heaven forth -drawing, watching life and 

yielding showers ! 
Father, long-suffering in waiting, whose hand upholds the life 

of mankind. 
Thou thy will in heaven revealest ; thee celestial spirits 

praise !' ' 

§ V. — Writing in the fourth millennium B. C. 

While I hold that certain dynasties of Egypt and 
that certain kings of Babylonia were contempora- 
neous, I am free to admit the great antiquity of read- 
ing and writing in those lands. Professor Maspero 
says : " Hebron no doubt was acquainted with the 
Hittite writing of Zoan, adopted it, and possessed 
writings from a remote date. ' ' (See ' ' Bible 
Growth and Religion," pp. 87-90.) Abraham 
came from Ur, which was even then a centre of 
learning. Sargon I. may have been before him, 
and certainly was not long after him. A copy of 
his annals has come down to us. He was a success- 
ful general and organizer, and a collector of libraries 
which made him famous. He traversed and con- 



30 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

quered the countries north and west to Cyprus, and 
on its rocks he inscribed a likeness of himself. He 
also carried large booty from that island to Asia. 
Other inscribed figures of that era have been found. 
Indeed, Sargon I. dedicated an inscribed egg of 
veined marble to the Sun God of Sippara, which is 
now in the British Museum ; and the seal of his 
librarian, Ibni-sarru, is in the hands of M. Le Clercq, 
of Paris. There is an ancient tradition and legend 
of him as Sargina, who was preserved and rescued 
in a way similar to that of Moses in Egypt. The 
pyramid builders were as early as the fourth mil- 
lennium B.C., when the Babylonians had their quar- 
ries in Sinai, and from thence transported blocks 
of stone to Babylonia. All which are evidences of 
art and culture at that time. And when Kham- 
muragas reigned, about 2300 b.c, there seems to 
have been a great literary revival, when the main 
bulk of Accadian literature came into existence. 
(Sayce's " Hibbert Lectures" for 1887, pp. 29-33 
and 420.) 

" On the rocks of Wady Magharah, in the Si- 
naitic peninsula, may be seen to this day an incised 
tablet representing Sneferu, the first monarch of 
the fourth dynasty, in the act of smiting an ene- 
my, whom he holds by the hair of his head. At 
the side we may see the words, Ta satu, Smiter of 
the nations." A famous second dynasty tablet is 
in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. There are 
other inscriptions of an early age. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 31 

Mr. Theodore G. Pinches, in a letter to the Acad- 
emy of January 21st, 1888, and to the English editor 
of Schrader's " Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. 2, 
which that editor incorporated into it, says that one 
of the tablets of Babylonian inscriptions of /about 
3000 b.c. maybe thus rendered : " The day for the 
worship of the gods was the delight of his (the 
writer's) heart, and the prayer of a king — that was 
joy. How did he learn the path of God glorious, who 
in the world lived, died, renewed ? . . . Open the 
high place, they have granted my prayer (<), until 
there be no more death, and weeping cease." This 
inscription was considered so important as very 
early to be accompanied with a glossary to explain 
all the hard and obsolete words in the ancient text. 
Again and. again the copyist wrote, " How has he 
learned the path of God glorious, who in the world 
lived, died, renewed ?" Moreover, the office of 
Mediator was anciently performed by Marduk, prob- 
ably referring to the " One who in the world lived, 
died, renewed." It is a Messianic prophecy, which 
possibly found fulfilment in Marduk 3000 years b.c. 
And writing was then known in Babylonia and in 
Egypt. 

For confirmation let us turn to Gen. 4 : 19-22, 
where we read of Jabal, the father of such as dwell 
in tents — tents which imply spinning and weaving. 
Jabal 's brother was Jubal of the harp and organ or 
pipe, implying yet more skill than tent-making. 
Then we have Tubal- Cain, the forger of every cut- 



32 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

ting instrument of brass or copper and ixon. And 
this stage of art and mechanics was before the death 
of Adam. No rearrangement of the records would 
place this item after the father of Noah. 

In the Babylonian and Oriental Record for Jan- 
nary, 1890, Mr. Pinches recounts sundry traditions 
of the Chinese, such as those of the Deluge, Crea- 
tion, Paradise, the Tree of Knowledge, the Temp- 
tation, the Fall, the Curse, traditions of Satan and 
the Angels, and of the Dispersion of mankind. 

In the creation of Adam they say, " Father God 
took a piece of His life, and breathed into the nos- 
trils of the man and the woman He had created, and 
they were real human beings. Thus creation was 
finished." In a series of papers in that journal it 
is shown that the Chinese may be traced back to the 
reign of Khammuragas in Babylonia, whence they 
emigrated, about 2300 b.c. His reign of fifty-five 
years is identified with that of Belos, who is also 
identified with Bel-Merodach (pp. 16, 19, 22). 

In the Chaldean legend preserved by Berosus we 
are told that Xisuthros — another name for Noah — 
was commanded, just before the Deluge, to bury 
all written documents known to him at Sippara, 
the ancient book town near Babylon. This he did, 
and upon leaving the Ark after the flood he re- 
turned to Sippara, disinterred those buried treasures, 
and thus transmitted them to posterity. Hence the 
written knowledge of the antediluvians has come 
down to us. However that maybe, we find a close 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 33 

resemblance in the ideas, thoughts, and legends of 
primitive man wherever scattered. 

Old Sippara and Agade, near by, were probably 
the " Sepharvaim 1 ' of the Book of Kings and of 
Isaiah. The spade and modern decipherments have 
disclosed their long- buried inscriptions, so that to- 
day we have much of their learning. The writings 
of old Acead, Babylon, and Egypt have been trans- 
lated into modern tongues. If we have not yet 
learned the processes of their thought, we hav3 
abundant evidences of their writing, their art, and 
mechanical skill. These clearly express their ideas 
of creation and of Providence, how man came into 
being, how God was the directive Force in the 
ordering of the world, how He was worshipped in 
the first ages, and how He communicated His will 
to man. Sometimes their ideas are crude and 
mythical, and sometimes they mistake the order of 
nature. Thus Accadian legends place the Moon be- 
fore the creation of the Sun, and they give the 
woman precedence over the man ; they also give a 
polytheistic coloring to their Deluge legends, and 
express providential oversight by making the planets 
" gods of the sky," who, dwelling in them, kept 
them from going wrong. 

If Genesis tells how God placed at the entrance 
to Eden, after man's expulsion, cherubim and a flam- 
ing sword which turned every way, to keep the way 
to the Tree of Life, the Gizdhubar legends 
tell of 

2* 



34 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

" The scorpion men who guard its gate, 

Of whom consuming is their terribleness, and their aspect 

death, 
Great is their majesty, o' ershadowing the forests. 
At the rising of the Sun and the setting of the Sun they 

guard the Sun." 

In other words — so Mr. St. Boscawen, in the June 
number of the Babylonian and Oriental Record 
for 1889 — Gizdhubar encounters " certain strange 
Cherubim-like guardians of the gates of the Sun, de- 
scribed as scorpion men, whose heads tower to the 
dome of Heaven, and whose feet rest in the shadow 
of the land, or house of death. In their appearance 
they are terrible, burning, consuming, as the naming 
sword was of the Hebrew Scri ptures. Beyond them, 
moreover, it is said (in col. 5), lay a beautiful garden 
which they guarded, further characterized as being 
\ equal to the trees of the gods in aspect,' * bear- 
ing emeralds as its fruit,' ' whose branches bend 
not to uphold the crystal covering they bear as foli- 
age,' ' pleasant to the sight.' This last phrase, it is 
needless to add, recalls that portion of the descrip- 
tion of the biblical garden : 

" i Every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for 
food ' (Gen. 2 : 9). 

" The scorpion-men of this legend serve, like the 
guardians of Eden, to exclude the hero, Gizdhubar, 
from access to this paradisaical garden, and from the 
Tree of Life, where he might restore his sick and 
declining frame." 

Moreover, a cylinder of hard stone, now in the 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 35 

British Museum, lias a tree represented on it with 
several horizontal branches on either side ; the low- 
est branches bear, each, a large bunch of fruit. A 
man sits on one side of the tree and a woman on the 
other side. They stretch out their hands as if to 
pluck the fruit. Behind the woman stands a ser- 
pent erect (Smith's " Chaldean Account in Gen- 
esis," pp. 88-91). These two records of the tablets 
can mean nothing less than the Fall and expulsion 
of Man from Eden. They inform us of the tempta- 
tion and of the punishment of man. 

Following upon that first sin is a legend in differ- 
ent versions of Cain and Abel. As was quite natu- 
ral, Mother Eve was early regarded as the daughter 
of God, for so indeed she was by creation. The 
birth of her first child was a real astonishment. No 
wonder she came to be considered as a goddess, 
offspring of the Great God. Very early the even- 
ing star was made her symbol, and then the morn- 
ing star. First deified as Nana, 2500 years b.c. or 
sooner, she was then called Istar. Her image, car- 
ried off 1635 years before Assur-bani-pal, was re- 
covered by his generals at the capture of Shushan. 
She was long the supposed bride of Tarn muz, the 
goddess of Assur and of Babylonia. At first pure 
as heaven, she was then debased to earth, and made 
the innocent patron of licentiousness. 

Her legend in the Gizdhubar Epic may have in- 
corporated somewhat of the story of Nimrod and of 
the older tragedy of Cain, who slew his brother. 



3§ THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

For, instead of being the bride of Tammuz, she was, 
in fact, his mother, who mourned for her son when 
slain by his brother Adar. Such was the Accadian 
version of Cain and Abel. We can form little con- 
ception of the astonishment at the first human birth ; 
greater yet was that at the first death. Terrible in- 
deed was the horror of the first murder. The 
amazement and anguish of Eve at the lifeless body 
of her son cannot be expressed in words. Sculp- 
ture and the painter can better do it. See the strik- 
ing attempt in a group in the Metropolitan Maseum, 
and also the horrible expression of the Cain. We 
quote Byron as he makes Mother Eve exclaim : 

" May the grass wither from thy feet ! the woods 
Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the dust 
A grave ! the sun his light, and heaven her God !' ' 

Some such feeling and sympathy with the first 
mother prompted, we may believe, the daughters 
of Babylonia to make annual lamentation for the 
dead Tammuz, which is but another name for Abel. 
Hence the origin of that ancient custom and of por- 
tions of the old Babylonian epic, which is far more 
a tragedy than a love story. Like Eachel weeping 
for her children, the mother of Tammuz and her 
daughters wept for their dead. It was Eve who be- 
came the goddess Istar ; the first of deified human- 
ity, and the longest to retain her hold upon man. 
Thus motherhood was early honored in our world 
by practices which degenerated into base supersti- 
tions. As the Yenus God, Istar was worshipped at 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 37 

Accad, Erech, Sippara, Ur, and Haran in the era of 
Abraham ; as Ashtoreth and Astarte by the Phoeni- 
cians, and as Diana and Venus by Greeks and Ro- 
mans. The murder of Tammuz was thought to 
have been avenged in the Deluge of Noah. 

Genesis was the first Hebrew book of science, the 
first Hebrew history, and the first book of theology. 
And it was in advance of any other science or his- 
tory which has come down to us. In other words, 
the science disclosed in our Bible and the history 
recorded therein are in advance of all other writings 
of the earliest ages. It must, therefore, have had 
an inspired author. Abraham probably rewrote the 
first nine chapters of Genesis, compiled from still 
earlier records ; but if they were first written by 
Moses, the marvel is great ; for it required a reve- 
lation of past events as well as of the creation story. 

Besides an account of the Sacred Tree, the Ser- 
pent, and the Expulsion for the sin of man, found in 
various ethnic traditions, Genesis gives an account 
of the unity of the human race, which is sustained 
by Baron Cuvier, by Dr. Prichard, and by Quar- 
trefages. Even Darwin was a monogenist. Then 
we have the unity of language as stated in Genesis 
confirmed by modern analysis. Max Miiller reduces 
the entire speech of man to about one hundred and 
twenty roots, or mother ideas. Every thought that 
ever crossed the mind of man can be traced back to 
about one hundred and twenty simple concepts 
(" Science of Thought"). Man's bodily structure, 



38 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

his instincts, senses, appetites, affections, mental 
faculties, religious capacities — all point to the same 
ethnic origin. As to color, the Jew is white in Eng- 
land and America, brown in Italy, olive in Syria, 
coffee-colored in Arabia, and almost black in Abys- 
sinia. Touching religion, man is everywhere relig- 
ious, even to superstition. He prays as naturally as 
he laughs. So in all these grand tests of truthfulness 
our Genesis is indisputably true. The ethnography 
of chapter 10 is true history, though, perhaps, writ- 
ten after the birth of Moab and Amnion, if not of 
Ishmael and Esau. From the sons of Noah the 
world has been peopled. Upon these several mat- 
ters are some excellent remarks by Dr. A. Cave in 
his u Inspiration of the Old Testament," pp. 110- 
160. Whatever knowledge of these things Abra- 
ham got from current legends and traditions, the 
arrangement and revision of them, if used in com- 
piling our Genesis, required Divine Inspiration. 

% VI. — The Deluge and Knowledge then. 

Briefly, we find that God told Noah when to build 
the Ark ; God sent the destruction upon man ; shut 
the door of the Ark ; assuaged the flood of waters ; 
set His bow in the heavens in token that He would 
not again destroy man with a Flood ; and when the 
sweet odors of Noah's sacrifice ascended to the skies, 
God smelled the fragrance. For it is remarkable 
that while the legends give a polytheistic version of 
the account, our Genesis corrects them, saying, 



ABRAHAM TO J CD AH. 39 

" Jehovah' ? — God in Divine Unity — smelled the 
sweet savor of that sacrifice. It looks like a record 
carefully made by the saved man, whose knowledge 
in other matters doubtless included the ability to 
write out his wonderful experiences. 

Moreover, the legend of the preservation of the 
antediluvian writings at Sippara can mean nothing 
less than that, in that far-off age, men frere com- 
petent to read and write. Even before the Deluge 
this art was known among men, arti so they who 
lived near that catastrophe believed. Their brick 
inscriptions inform us how the older written knowl- 
edge was preserved. Accadian and Egyptian 
legends have been discovered and deciphered which 
make this fact clear. For legend is not a myth or 
a guess, but a reading, and those ancient legends 
record impressions of how mankind were preserved 
from total extinction. In Ckaldea, Egypt, India, 
China, they testify that such preservation was by 
Divine interposition. Brick, stone, papyrus, are 
uniform in the main facts; A long-lived race had 
the time needed for various learning. Step by step 
they attained to the treasures of knowledge, and 
they were careful to record for after 'generations 
their ideas and achievements. Forgeries no one 
pretends them to be ; but even forgery would prove 
a true original. Men do not counterfeit the spuri- 
ous, but the genuine : the actual, not the fictitious. 
To invent Deluge legends is absurd. 

Possibly the Egyptian story of Thoth and his 



40 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

wonderful book, whose contents, even a single page, 
would charm the heavens and the earth, the seas 
and the mountains, may have arisen from the legend 
of the book knowledge of the world preserved at 
Sippara, notwithstanding the misfortune which it 
brought upon its possessor. Or it may have been 
a version of the forbidden knowledge obtained by 
eating of the forbidden fruit in Eden, which, as in 
the Pandora^ box of the Greeks, brought unspeak- 
able evils upon mankind. 

Then their destruction by the God Ra, as told in 
another Egyptian story, cannot have been without 
a foundation in truth. " For a long time he had 
reigned over obedient subjects, but at length they 
grew headstrong and unruly ; they uttered words 
against Ra ; they plotted evil things ; they griev- 
ously offended him. So he called a council of the 
celestials to consider what he should do. They ad- 
vised that mankind be destroyed. Hathor and 
Sekhet were commissioned to the work of destruc- 
tion, and proceeded to smite the men over the whole 
land. This brought fear and repentance upon them, 
and the men of Elephantine made haste to propi- 
tiate the gods. They extracted the juice from the 
best of their fruits, mingled it with human blood, 
filled seven thousand jars with it, and brought them 
as an offering to the Deity. Ra drank and was con- 
tent, and bade that the liquor which remained be 
poured out of the jars ; when, lo ! an inundation 
covered the whole land of Egypt. And when 



I 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 41 

Hathor went forth the next day to destroy, she saw 
no men in the fields, but only water, which she 
drank ; it pleased her, and she went away satisfied.' ' 
Some, indeed, see no reference to the Deluge in this 
story, while others of undoubted learning and judg- 
ment do. It implies that a destruction had been 
wrought as a punishment for the sins of men by the 
Deity, and that those who survived the pestilence 
or smiting of Hathor were destroyed by inundation 
of the river. By a confusion in the order of events, 
the propitiatory sacrifice of the Elephan tines, though 
acceptable to Ra, failed to procure the desired res- 
pite. This is unaccountable. In another version 
of this story, by M. Naville, in " Records of the 
Past," he represents some men as saved, and that 
the practice of making libations to Hathor arose from 
that fact. Lenormant suggests the correspondence 
of Ra in Egypt with Bel in Chaldea, and that the 
form of the tradition was changed to suit the feel- 
ings of the Egyptians, who regarded the overflow- 
ing Nile as a benefaction. Hence the destructive 
gods were the slayers of men. (See " God in Crea- 
tion," pp. 101-111.) Such variations in the ac- 
count are not denials of the catastrophe. 

In the Accadian legend the variations are marked. 
Principal Dawson has called attention to them in a 
paper in the Contemporary Review for December, 
1889. There a " steersman" is introduced, the 
ship is " launched," not floated with the rising 
waters ; while the dimensions of the Ark are large- 



42 THE WRITERS OP GENESIS. 

ly increased. Its construction and navigation imply 
advanced knowledge in such matters. The Biblical 
is the more reasonable account, but that is of a vessel 
300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, 
with lower, second, and third stories, having sundry 
compartments. It was to be of such form and 
strength as to carry an immense cargo of provisions 
and living animals, endure a terrific downpour from 
heaven, and withstand the shocks of a breaking up 
of the foundations of the great deep. That catas- 
trophe included upheavals, convulsions, and various 
destructive forces at work. The saving vessel must 
be duly proportioned, well built, and capacious. 
Nor was it a mere float, but a three-decked vessel 
as large as an Atlantic steamer. Those 300 cubits 
were nearly 600 feet, the width was about twice 
that of a large steamer, and the depth some 55 ft. 
The sacred cubit is supposed to have been two of 
our feet, or 25 inches. 

While 30 and 50 are factors of 300, few builders 
would trust their memory with the figures, nor with 
the deck measurement and divisions of the Ark. 
Then as now the skill to build such a huge float 
implies the skill to write down the directions. Add 
to this the legend of the preservation of the ancient 
writings by burying them at Sippara, and it em- 
phasizes the probability that the antediluvians were 
able to read and write. In nothing is the testimony 
of the three great families of man more corrobora- 
tive than in Deluge legends. See that chapter in 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 43 

" God in Creation ;" in Dr. Cave's "Inspiration 
of the Bible ;" in Dr. Fradenburgh's " Witnesses 
from the Dust," and in Lenormant's and Sir 
Principal Dawson's works. Dr. Cave notes that 
Yima, in the Aryan story, was commanded to build 
" when six hundred winters" had passed over him, 
and that " Noah was six hundred years old when 
the Flood broke." Moreover, the Accadians and 
Lithuanians confirm Genesis in having the rainbow 
as the sign of God's returning favor. Sir William 
Dawson corrects the usually judicious Schrader, who 
objected to " the omission of the swallow, when 
the story passed over to the Hebrews. It is one of 
the most amusing instances of the inversion of sound 
criticism which results when unscientific commen- 
tators tamper with the plain statements of truthful 
and observant witnesses. The addition of the swal- 
low in the Chaldean version is a mark of interpola- 
tion, arising from a local and popular superstition 
attached to the swallow." Our chief business with 
these legends now is not confirmation of the fact of 
the Deluge of Noah, but rather that in his era, be- 
fore and after, man could probably record such 
events, and record them correctly. 

§ VII. — In Egypt and Babylonia. 

Amenemhat I., of the twelfth "dynasty, wrote 
detailed ''Instructions" to his son — the earliest 
literary production of royalty that has reached us. 
Writing, however, was exceeded by the skill which 



44 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

built the great pyramid of Khufu of the fourth 
dynasty, and the pyramid of Shafra soon after. 
They are the most ancient remains of those times 
and reach back to very near the Deluge. What skill 
in engineering and the mechanic arts is implied to 
raise such huge blocks of rock, nicely chiselled and 
fitted into a compact mass, in comparison with which 
our modern cathedrals are but chapels. If Egyptol- 
ogists are right in dating them at about 3300 B.C., 
the skill thus manifested in the morning of the 
world renders probable the truth of the legend that 
even before the Deluge men wrote out the events 
of their times. 

Indeed, there are sculptures and inscriptions of 
Snef era's officers which prove hieroglyphic and 
picture writing of before the year 3000 of our era. 
Earlier still was that second dynasty tablet now in 
the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford ; while the 
metaphysical distinctions of man made him to con- 
sist of body, soul, spirit or intelligence, life, shadow 
and name ; so M. Maspero and others. Miss Ed- 
wards adds that " the Book of the Dead shows 
that all these several parts had to be restored to the 
man, and reunited before he could obtain immortal- 
ity." The subtlety of the classification is remark- 
able for the period. And, says Rawlinson, " No 
rudeness or want of finish attaches either to the 
writing or to the drawing of Snef era's time ; the 
artists do not attempt much, but what they attempt 
they accomplish." Moreover, at Meydoum and at 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 45 

Sakkara are pyramids earlier than those of Kliufu 
and Shafra, of whom and of Una we find inscrip- 
tions. Then of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties 
we have a literature. 

A tomb of the eleventh dynasty records of the 
dead reposing within it : "I was beloved by the 
king more than his nobles and officers in all the 
South. He caused me to rule when I was a mere 
child of a<jubit high. He elevated my seat when 
I still wore the lock of youth ; he had me taught to 
swim with the royal children. I was a marvel of 
uprightness (a servant), who did no injury to his 
master, who had trained him from a child. Siut 
was contented with my administration, Heraeleop- 
olis Magna praised God for me, Upper and Lower 
Egypt said, ' This is the wisdom of a great prince.' " 

This was in the dynasty before Abraham, when 
the two Egypts were under one sovereign, and prior 
to the Hyksos domination. 

Another inscription, probably of the tenth dyn- 
asty, says of the Prince of Siut : " I came to 
my city, I entered my nome ; I did what men de- 
sired, what the gods approved ; I gave bread to the 
hungry, and clothes the naked ; 1 listened to the 
cry of the widow, 1 gave a dwelling to the homeless. 
I returned evil with good, and sought not injury, 
in order that I might remain long on the earth, and 
thence pass to perfection." Then a blessing is in- 
voked on his friends. " But every evil one, every 
perverse one who shall do the reverse of these 



46 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

things which he has heard, his name shall not re- 
main, he shall not be buried in the necropolis-hill, 
he shall be destroyed with the wicked." See " Re- 
port of Egypt Exploration Fund for 1888-89," 
and other translations in it. These inscriptions fit- 
tingly preceded the writing of Genesis, and were 
not improbably known'to Abraham. 

Even while revising these pages news comes from 
England of the receipt of another collection of in- 
scribed tablets which were written at different times 
from about 2300 to 200 years b.o. in Chaldea. 
Some of the tablets were enclosed in clay envelopes, 
on which another copy is written. One such pair 
dates about 2200 B.C., and discloses the curious fact 
that thus early agents were employed in Babylon to 
obtain children for adoption by wealthy citizens 
who had none of their own. Those agents were 
paid a regular commission by the parents of such 
children and by those who adopted them. The 
humanity thus illustrated is an important feature of 
the life of those times. 

Moreover, we have the mute speaking Sphinx, 
so wise in his silence, and the Tower of Babel, 
either of which necessitated a high degree of me- 
chanical skill, not far distant from the era of the 
Flood. Sippara, on the Euphrates, and Kerioth- 
sepher, near the Jordan, were book-towns of great 
antiquity, and possessed a written literature. What 
is recorded of Noah and his sons, which lifts the 
veil from his couch and the curtain of his tent, is of 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 47 

a kind to be written, not carried in the memory. 
They were not revelations to the compiler of Gen- 
esis, but were matters of history, of legend and 
tradition, for the instruction of men, who had not 
to wait six centuries for them to be written. 

The blessing upon Shem and Japheth and the 
curse of Canaan began to be realized before Israel 
entered Palestine. Thus the words * ; Ham was 
the father of Canaan' 3 have long been regarded as 
true in application to those doomed tribes who 
found the avenger of Xoah in conquering Joshua. 
The malediction and its fulfilment, not far apart in 
our records, were some two thousand years apart 
in accomplishment. And of those two millenniums 
Father Abraham learned much of the history from 
the ancient tablets of Ur and Accad. The language 
of Babylon, we are now assured, was then the 
language of commerce and of international com- 
muni cation. By it the lords of Chaldea and the 
princes of Palestine could readily converse with the 
princes of Egypt. Nor was Abraham behind them 
in literary culture. (See i% ' Bible Growth and Re- 
ligion, ,? pp. tti— 61.) He certainly had no difficulty 
in conversing with Pharaoh Usertesen II., who prob- 
ably reigned when he fled from the famine of Canaan. 
Indeed, the art of writing is traced a thousand 
years back of Abraham. While Mr. Flinders Petrie 
describes papyri of the twelfth dynasty, other writ- 
ten papyri of that era have been found in the Fayum 
excavations. And Professor Savce writes of an 



48 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Egyptian scarab, with its duplicate of the first dyn- 
asty. Upon examining it, he found an inscription 
which he renders, " The Lord of the North and the 
South, Amu." Amu is a Semitic word, meaning 
" the terrible one," the plural of which occurs in 
Gen. U : 5 ; Deut. 2 : 10, 11. There the word 
designates the Emim, who were then the people of 
that land, and were so called by the Moabites, who 
succeeded the Emim in possession of that country. 
Dr. Naville has also found among the inscriptions 
of Bubastis the same name, Amu, which may have 
denoted a god at an early period ; but Professor 
Sayce asks : " Was it the name of an unknown 
prince ?" (The Academy for July 20th, 1889, and 
for October 26th, 1889.) Whatever the word 
meant, its being inscribed on a scarab of that era 
proves the remote antiquity of writing, of which 
the tablets of Tel-el- Amarna furnish additional il- 
lustrations. Long before Abraham left Babylonia, 
and before he visited Egypt, reading and writing 
were common in both lands. It was the assured 
way to honor and wealth. Children of nobles, 
sometimes children of slaves, were taught to read 
and write. There was no difficulty from lack of 
the required skill to record the early history of man- 
kind and of G-od's dealing with them from the days 
of Seth, when men worshipped Jehovah in public 
assemblies, to Noah's acceptable sacrifice and Abra- 
ham's call out of Ur. Lenormant suggests a series 
of revelations during that period. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 49 

Whatever the method of instruction, the teaching 
itself was from above, by the Spirit of God. Thus 
knowledge of Creation, of Paradise almost every- 
where found, of Expulsion thence, of a Promised 
Redeemer, of the Serpent as an evil-worker, of Sab- 
bath and Sacrifice, of Immortality, of good and bad 
Spirits, and of God's overruling Providence for the 
benefit of man — these ten elements of religion were 
very early known, and may be clearly traced among 
the three great races descended from Noah. This 
has been done for the general reader in the little 
book " God Enthroned in Redemption," published 
by Mr. Whittaker, New York. It is certainly 
probable that those primitive men recorded and 
carefully cherished their early knowledge, which 
was divinely imparted. In no other way can we 
account for the similarity of thought and action 
among the scattered nations. 

Adam, Noah, and some other names of early 
patriarchs have not yet been deciphered in Baby- 
lonian inscriptions ; showing an earlier and indepen- 
dent origin of Bible names which were not derived 
from them. But we find some names of animals 
the same in the Bible and in India ; viz., those for 
elephant, ape, peacock ; in Egypt, kafi ; Sanskrit, 
kapi ; Hebrew, kuf ; Greek, kepus ; Latin, cepus. 
So Conder's " Syrian Stone Lore." As it is not 
pretended that the Hebrews borrowed from the 
Hindus, such similarity of names would seem trace- 
able to a common origin before separation from 
the same ancestral home. 
3 



50 THE WRITERS *OF GENESIS. 

§ VIII.— Tower of Babel. 

Not only does the ethnology of Gen. 10 bear 
the test of criticism, but we find confirmation of 
the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues 
in the brick inscriptions. Early fragments of the 
accounts have been discovered, which accentuates 
the skill of the first ages. Compare Gen. 11 : 1-9 
with the " find" which astonished Mr. George 
Smith in 1875. Though torn from its connection, 
it is supposed to have been preceded by another 
narrative. The fragment is rendered : " Babylon 
to sin corruptly went ; small and great were mingled 
on the mound. Make strange their speech ; make 
hostile their counsel. The King of the holy mound 
their work confounded. To their stronghold at 
night they went ; entirely an end he made. In his 
anger the secret counsel he declared ; to scatter 
abroad his face was set ; to confuse or make strange 
their speech (the verb is similar to the Hebrew) he 
gave command. The builders continued to build ; 
against the gods they revolted. Even the gods la- 
mented the Babylonians. By whirlwind and storm 
their work was destroyed." Another fragment 
reads : " Against the father of all the gods was 
wickedness . . . and great he confounded their 
speech. Babylon is brought to subjection." Mr. 
George Smith also discovered cylinders on which 
tall piles and the outline of a god were represented. 
There were figures with outstretched hands resting 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 51 

on tall piles, as if erecting them, and a god is por- 
trayed in the company. The legend is believed to 
be identical with the account in Genesis. 

But, very ancient as is the tradition, it is not 
alone. When the tablets were well known and one 
of their two languages was a living tongue, Berosus 
read it, and incorporated it into his history. He 
speaks of " earth's first inhabitants who gloried in 
their strength, despised the gods, and undertook 
to erect a tower which should reach to the sky. 
It was on the site where Babylon now stands. But 
the gods diversified their speech ; for till then men 
spoke the same language. By the winds of Heaven 
their work was overturned. Whereupon war arose 
between Kronus or Saturn, and Titan. From the 
confusion of tongues thence arising, the Hebrews 
called the place Babel." A similar version by the 
Sibyl is given in Cory's " Ancient Fragments," p. 
75, and see p. 55. There is also a probable refer- 
ence to the Tower of Babel in the historic account 
of Nebuchadnezzar's rebuilding the great temple of 
Bel Merodach. He says " The earthquake and the 
thunder had dispersed the sun-dried clay. He 
changed not the site, nor removed the foundation, 
but set his hand to finish it as it was in former 
times." 

§ IX. — Summary of Points. 

Thus, in the early records of God in Creation, in 
similar religious ideas among the representative na- 



52 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

tions of early ages, in the ethnic history of Gen- 
esis, in Deluge legends, tower-building, speech-con- 
founding, and primitive civilization, we have illus- 
trations of culture and education among men ; which 
imply the ability to read and write in the days of 
Noah ; which suggest how Abraham learned the 
knowledge he possessed, and from his known char- 
acter as the chosen one to found a new people who 
should preserve the true religion in the world, mark 
him out as the Inspired collector, reviser, redactor 
and editor of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. 
They were written in a form which suited the men 
of that era, were calculated to further the Divine 
purposes, and were adapted to the capacity of the 
young Hebrew people. They were written for a 
Divine purpose and plan, partly to correct the then 
polytheistic notions which prevailed in Babylonia 
and in Egypt, and to teach that God Almighty 
created the heavens and the earth, and was the 
Creator and Preserver of mankind. It was not to 
teach science according to our notions of science, 
but to teach and to unfold the origin of man, some 
of the accomplished facts in his past, and some grand 
facts and developments of his future. Both crea- 
tion and man — its crowning work — were of God, 
whose Providence still governed in the affairs of 
man, and whose educational and uplifting designs 
were yet to be accomplished in a chosen nation for 
the Redemption of mankind, and in the final coro- 
nation of sanctified humanity. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 53 

Hence we name Abraham as the compiler of the 
first chapters of Genesis, under the Inspiration of 
God, while those following were from Divine Rev- 
elations and personal experiences. Hence we learn 
the foundation of the right and the why Jehovah 
selected a Hebrew family to be His chosen people. 

The one objection to this view of the writer of 
those first chapters is the use of the Divine name 
Jehovah and compounding it with names of places, 
as in Mori ah, Jehovah- Jireh, and as found in the 
Creation, Noachian, and Palestinian accounts. Nor 
does it, at first view, explain the so-called Elohistic 
and Jehovahistic portions of Genesis. But this is 
because it has been assumed that the name Jehovah 
was not known before Moses. 

It was six hundred years from Abraham to Moses, 
and during four hundred of those years Israel was 
in Egypt. That was long enough, under their con- 
ditions, to lose the precise theological knowledge 
which their fathers had received. Hence the use 
of the Divine name Jehovah fell into disuse in 
Egypt, and was given again to Moses in Exodus 
3^; 13-18 ; 6 : 3. But some think that was the 
first revelation of it, though in fact it may have 
been then thus given to distinguish Jehovah from 
the gods of Egypt. We notice the previous use of 
Jehovah in Ex. 3 : 2, -1, 7, of events before its rev- 
elation in verse 11. (See "God in Creation," p. 61.) 

Moreover, it would derogate from the majesty of 
the record to substitute another word for Jehovah 



54 THE WRITERS QF GENESIS. 

in a passage like, "I have waited for Thy salva- 
tion, O Jehovah !" (Gen. 49 : 18.) So of Joseph, 
it is not simply a God who was with him in Egypt, 
but Jehovah (39 : 2), which is repeated in verses 
3, 5, 21, 23. Properly to his master's wife, Joseph 
urges that it was sin against God — against her 
God as well as his God, and so Jehovah is not 
used, but the general name for God (verse 9). In 

28 : 13, 16, 21 Jehovah again appears as the Cov- 
enant Lord of Israel, whom Leah recognized in 

29 r 31, 32, 35. Nor was the word used without a 
purpose by Isaac in Gen. 26 : 2, 12, 22, 24, 25, 28, 
2&, seven times in that chapter. And it seems to 
be of special significance as used in chapters 22, 19, 
18, 17, 16, 15, and 14 : 22, being the name of the 
Covenanted Jehovah, where the God of Melchizedek 
is distinguished from the Jehovah of Abraham. 
He does not cast off Hagar, but His angel found 
her at the fountain, and bade her return to her mis- 
tress (16 : 7, 9, 11, 13). It is hardly probable that 
Moses made such changes in the text, though he 
might properly revise local names and add a word 
of illustration. Thus in 14 : 7, 8, 14, where he 
describes the country as that of the Amalekites, and 
what was ZoarandDan ; perhaps inserting verse 19 
in chapter 15, and defining Beer-sheba in 26 : 33. 
In 35 : 20 he observes that Rachel's pillar still re- 
mained over her grave, and he makes additions and 
revisions to chapter 36 : 11, 12, 15, 16, 42, 43. 
But we prefer to regard the general record as that 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 55 

which was first written, though the modernizing of 
local names improves the narrative. 

Even if we must allow the change of the Divine 
name by Moses as editor, that is little in comparison 
with assuming the whole of Genesis to have been a 
new revelation to Moses, which does not accord 
with God's usual method of not repeating Himself. 
And we avoid such repetitions by ascribing the first 
Genesis to Abraham and his immediate successors. 
After Moses, not till Samuel, perhaps not till Ezra, 
was another revision necessary for Hebrew or for 
Gentile. To Abraham God is revealed as the 
covenant God ; to Moses the ritual of His worship 
is revealed. 

Thus we find sufficient explanation of the differ- 
ences in style, of local names, of words free and 
flowing, or concise and rigid, of the scientific, pro- 
phetic, narrative, and poetic writing of our Genesis. 

Dr. Cave properly asks, " If Moses was the Je- 
hovist, who was the Elohist V And then gives 
reasons for believing that he was both. " He util- 
ized existing materials collected by a writer who 
preferred the name Elohim for Deity, and he, there 
is strong reason for believing, was the Jehovistic 
writer ; for he might well have penned his Elohis- 
tic document a sufficient time before the events at 
Sinai to account for the change of literary style, as 
well as of religious standpoint." Yes, Dr. Cave, 
he might ; but did he ? And does this explain 
what St. Stephen said about him, and what he sup- 



56 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

posed his brethren understood of bim ? Dr. Cave 
seems not to account for St. Stephen, in his able de- 
fence of the Mosaic authorship. But we must ac- 
count for that, and for Moses's first mistake and fail- 
ure. These are points which strongly make for 
Abraham as the original writer of the first portions 
of our Genesis, while Isaac, Jacob, and Judah 
wrote the succeeding chapters. 

§ X. — Abraham? s Memoirs. 

The patriarch, having revised and corrected what 
he had been early taught, and incorporated what 
had been revealed to him of the Creation Story and 
the primitive history of mankind in chapters 1 to 
■11, proceeds, in chapter 12, to record his personal 
memoirs. Who but Abraham could write Genesis 
rl2 ? It contains the call to him to get out of his 
country, from his kindred, and from his father's 
house, unto a land which God would show him, and 
there make of him a great nation. This is a per- 
sonal communication which he regarded as from 
Jehovah. It took him up by the roots, so to say, 
cut through his affections, and implied manifold 
risks in following. He was comparatively a young 
man of some sixty years when he left Ur. He 
spent some more years in Haran, where his father 
died, and in his seventy- fifth year was bidden to 
pass on to Shechem and the oak of Moreh. These 
are all matters known only to Abraham at the first. 
But they were so vitally important to him that he 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 57 

could not let them float away into uncertain memo- 
ries, and so be duly entered the account in his reg- 
ister. 

But because he added, to emphasize the peculiar 
fact of God's gift of the land to him and his poster- 
ity, " And the Canaanite was then in the land," 
some hold that another wrote it at a later time. It 
is, in fact, a time-mark of antiquity. It was not 
written in Egypt, nor at Sinai, nor under conquer- 
ing Joshua, but by him to whom the country was 
promised when the Canaanite was in the land. 
Abraham evidently considered it a proof of God's 
purpose to put him in their place. 

Others have kept a diary of events, even writing 
down impressive dreams. Here is the root and 
foundation of a new and Revealed Religion, by 
which the God of heaven entered into covenant with 
man ; a representative man, religious, intelligent, 
prosperous, and with a remarkable opportunity 
opening before him — think you that such a man, 
having the ability to write, would fail to record and 
carefully preserve such a Divine promise to him and 
to his seed ? Promptly he builded an altar unto the 
Lord, and upon going to Bethel he built another 
(verses 7, 8). As the greater would seem to include 
the less, we infer that he also wrote the account of 
all these matters for the use of his promised seed, 
through whom all families of men should be blessed 
(verse 3). He also records his visit to Egypt, because 
of the famine in Canaan ; what befell him there, and 
3* 



58 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

his safe return, being very rich in cattle, in silver 
and in gold. It was twenty years before the birth 
of Isaac. Lot also was with him (12 : 10 ; 13 : 1). 

Surely these things were not matters of a later 
revelation. And representations of similar visits 
are to-day found upon Egyptian monuments. Syrian 
nomads are portrayed as entering the Delta and ob- 
taining permission to pasture their flocks and herds. 
Even on the tomb of an Egyptian governor of the 
era of Abraham is represented a company of Syrians 
coming to him for permission to pasture their herds 
in his district. The reigning Pharaoh was probably 
Usertesen II., of the twelfth dynasty. One of the 
best-known pictures of the ancient empire repre- 
sents the arrival of a nomad chief, with his family 
and dependents, seeking sustenance and protection. 
They were Semites from Arabia, or Palestine. 
Even the name of the chief is given, Abshah, which 
some identify with that of Abraham. It at least 
suggests that where Abshah was received Abraham 
would not be rejected. 

Moreover, presents like those of the Pharaoh to 
Abraham — viz., sheep, oxen, asses, and slaves, are 
to-day found pictured on the monuments of Beni- 
Hassan. They mark an early period, since after the 
ass became the emblem of Typho he would not be 
thus represented ; nor would they whose god he 
symbolized give him away to unbelievers ; nor 
would true Egyptians present to their friends what 
they regarded as emblems of the Devil ; for such 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 59 

in later times the ass became in Egypt. This por- 
traiture, then, belongs to the time before the Hyk- 
sos and before the horse was domesticated in the 
Nile land. It was probably not known there in 
Abraham's day. Yet the wagons and chariots men- 
tioned in Gen. 45, 46, 50, where horsemen also oc- 
cur, show that then horses were in common use 
in Egypt. There is an account in one of the oldest 
existing papyri of an Egyptian by the name of 
Saneha, who went as a fugitive to southern Pales- 
tine, as a modern would go to a country of which 
he was suspicious of his safety, and was not quite 
sure of returning. At length he was restored to 
his friends, and gave the narrative of his courteous 
reception and entertainment, and was himself pleased 
with his welcome home again. (" Records of the 
Past," vol. vi., pp. 131-150; also vol. ii. of 2d 
ed., with a new translation by M. Maspero). 

Of chapter 13 there can be no question that 
Abraham, rather than Lot, was the writer. Its con- 
tents would not be a revelation to Moses. It is his- 
tory. So of the memorable incidents in Gen. 14 ; 
they were evidently recorded by its chief actor. 
The supposed difficulty in verse 7, " They smote all 
the country of the Amalekites," disappears if con- 
sidered as the revision of Moses. Amalek is here 
first mentioned, but not by anticipation, as the 
" Speaker's Commentary" suggests, nor as a pow- 
erful people of uncertain origin, so the " Concise 
Dictionary of Religious Knowledge," but as a later 



(TO THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

revision which described the smitten country as 
that which was occupied by the Amalekites. It 
was the field or country where they dwelt in the 
time of Moses or the reviser. They were descend- 
ed from Esau (Gen. 36 : 16). 

Chapter 14 also shows the mistake of Lot. Ho 
had made his choice, and dwelt in the cities of the 
Plain, when Chedorlaomer appeared and captured 
him with all he possessed. The details are so ex- 
plicit respecting names and nations in Syria and 
South Babylonia, the number of Abraham's trained 
servants and his allies, the way taken to Hobah, and 
the rescue by a night attack of all the persons and 
property that had been carried away ; the happy 
return, the public thanksgiving by the priest-king 
of Salem, the bread and wine brought forth, the 
tithes paid by Abraham, even the little strategy of 
the prince of Sodom in order to gain some honor 
for himself among his subjects, after his defeat by 
the marauders, and the refusal of Abraham to take 
any share of the recovered goods for his risk and 
pains, save only what the young soldiers had eaten, 
the portion due to Aner, Eschol, and Mamre — 
these are so many marks of time and circumstance 
as to require a prompt record of the particulars to 
be made by the chief actor in the occurrences. 
They were not the things to be left to inspiration 
in some later writer, but were written out and 
handed on from Abraham to Moses, or the fine dis- 
tinction between the El-Elyon of Melchizedek and 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 61 

the Jehovah El-Ely on of Abraham loses all its point 
(14 : 22). Pentateuchal analysts overlook its im- 
portance. See an able paper by Rev. H. A. Rog- 
ers in O. and N. Test. Student for March, 1890. 

The vision and revelation narrated in chapter 15 ; 
the promise of an heir other than Ishmael, not- 
withstanding the prayer of his father ; the gift of 
all the country round about the Jordan ; the ac- 
companying sacrifice and the attesting fire, together 
with the dark unfolding of the servitude of his de- 
scendants for four hundred years, to be followed by 
judgments upon the oppressors and the deliverance 
of Israel, with the boundaries of the lands they 
should possess— these, too, were recorded by Abra- 
ham. They were of such far-seeing importance as 
not to be left to the chance of memory and erring 
traditions. 

That it was early attributed to Moses finds illus- 
tration in our English translation of the Bible, which 
is often attributed to Coverdale, or Rogers, orCran- 
mer, or even to Wy cliff e, or to Geneva, instead of 
to William Tyndale, to whom the first half of the 
Old Testament and the whole of the New Testa- 
ment should be ascribed, with revisions by Cover- 
dale,.. Rogers, and later editors. 

In Gen. 16 are family incidents and details of a 
character which none but the parties directly con- 
cerned could preserve ; which Abraham could write 
only in part, and which found a completing hand 
in Judah. For it would be strange indeed if he did 



62 THE WRITERS OE GENESIS. 

not cross the track of Hagar's grandchildren. Those 
shepherds and hunters were not strangers to one an- 
other. The man who knew the children of Midian 
also knew the children of Ishmael (37 : 26-2$). 
Thus he was competent to add to the tribal history, 
by gleanings from others of Abraham's family. 
Attentive readers of the Bible are often pained at 
the notions of those who claim to find in its narra- 
tive portions the same measure of inspiration as they 
find in its visions, its Divine Epiphanies, and its 
covenant revelations. 

The angel's announcement to Hagar in regard to 
her son, the sort of man he would be, and the posi- 
tion he would occupy are not beneath the dignity 
of history. It was not, however, a revelation to 
Moses. If no other use comes of knowing about 
Ishmael, it at least teaches the difference in those 
who were in the line of redemptive preparations 
and those who were not. And it discloses the hu- 
man factors engaged therein : how human impulse, 
if not passion, conduced, to the one great end ; how 
the pride of Sarah, in discarding Ishmael, prepared 
a place for the Babe of Bethlehem. Indeed, the 
free play (we use the word reverently) of the human 
with the Divine marks the truth of the story in 
Genesis, as well as the Scribe who penned it for 
after ages. But they would not be revelations given 
four centuries later. 

Chapter 17 to 18 : 15 narrates the institution of 
circumcision as the seal of Jehovah's covenant with 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 63 

His chosen people ; how Canaan was bestowed upon 
them as an everlasting possession ; how Israel was 
promised as the heir of that covenant ; how Abra- 
ham was circumcised in his ninety-ninth year,' and 
Ishmael in his thirteenth year, as well as all the 
men born in his house, or bought with money — 
free-born and slave-born were circumcised with 
their tribal chief. They are personal items of wide- 
reaching significance, and so were faithfully record- 
ed at the time. It was, in fact, the Magna Charta 
of Jehovah renewed to Abraham and to the poster- 
ity of Sarah : in Isaac was the chosen race. Thus 
early was Woman's Rights certified by Covenant. 
Not in Ishmael, not in after-born sons of Keturah, 
but in the gentle Isaac, the child of Abraham in his 
hundredth year and of Sarah in her ninetieth year, 
was the covenant to be sealed and the nations to 
be blessed. Can we doubt that records of that Di- 
vine heritage were made at the time, and by him 
whom God called out of ITr to become its chief 
human agent ? It is not to be expected that su- 
pernal means would be used to perpetuate or to give 
new accounts of what could just as well be written 
and transcribed by human hands and a truthful 
spirit. 

Thus was penned the visit of the angels whom 
Abraham entertained, and who made known to him 
coming events, and what God was about to do to 
the wicked cities of southern Jordan. That mem- 
orable appeal to the Divine clemency, which has 



64 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

rendered the patriarch forever illustrious as the great 
interceder for great sinners, was written soon after 
it was made. Simple in its grandeur, it sets forth 
the progressive steps in the plea to save the obdu- 
rate : u If fifty, if lack of five of fifty, if forty, 
and so on down to ten" — who but Abraham could 
have pleaded so earnestly and so adroitly at that 
time ? Who but he could have written it for our 
learning ? Then the Lord went His way after com- 
muning with Abraham, and Abraham returned to 
his place (Gen. 18 : 33). Could such a statement be 
a revelation to Moses six centuries later ? While 
the incident teaches a striking lesson touching God's 
dealings with man, it has little special relation with 
Israel, or with later unfoldings to him. But the 
judgment removed one set of corrupt people from 
contamination of others. No parallel has yet been 
discovered to that famous pleading. 

| XI. — Destruction of Sodom in Accadian Legend. 

But of the dire calamity which followed, even of 
the deliverance of Lot, though not of his prayer, 
all which are related in Gen. 19, an account is be- 
lieved to have been found in the Babylonian in- 
scriptions. We read thus : " An overthrow from 
the midst of the deep there came. The fated punish- 
ment from the midst of heaven descended. A 
gtorm like a plummet the earth overwhelmed. To 
the four winds the destroying flood like fire did 
burst. The inhabitants of citiesit caused to be tor- 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 65 

mented ; their bodies it consumed. In city and 
country it spread death, and the flames as they rose 
overthrew. Freemen and slaves were equal, and 
the high places it filled. In heaven and earth it 
rained a thunderstorm. Death overtook mankind. 
As for this man [probably Lot] there was a loud 
voice of the thunder [to warn him]. The terrible 
lightning flash descended. During the day it flash- 
ed ; grievously it fell." (" Records of the Past,'' 
vol. xi., pp. 117-18.) However that inscription 
was derived, the account originated with Abraham 
as recorded in our Genesis. The name Lot is sup- 
posed to be found in Syrian inscriptions. 

The avenging downpour of fire from heaven, 
burning and consuming the earth, destroyed a land 
which had been as the garden of Eden. It is a ca- 
tastrophe which finds confirmation in the history of 
the allied chieftains under Chedorlaomer. They 
were heads of tribes and principalities in southern 
Babylonia. Nimrod is believed to have had a suc- 
cessor in one of them, and all of them in their suc- 
cessors were merged and consolidated by Sargon of 
Agade, the list of whose names and reigns was 
found and displayed by Naram-Sin, the son of Sar- 
gon, when hai:d pushed by his unassimilated sub- 
jects. This list, thus composed and originating, 
probably formed the long line of 350 kings whom 
Naram-Sin claimed to have reigned before him ; 
and it has needlessly revolutionized the old Baby- 
lonian chronology. Some critics seem ready to ac- 



66 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

cept any pretence for putting dates and eras back 
as far as possible, as though such change could 
affect the truth of history. Not only was there a 
beginning to historic times, but such beginning bore 
some relation to other and contemporaneous events. 
Sargon I. and his son prove and illustrate the uni- 
fication of four or five different lines of princes, who 
were, in fact, contemporaneous. 

Indeed, the confederacy and expedition of Chedor- 
laomer against southern Palestine, render the legend 
of the Accadians concerning it, not only not surpris- 
ing, but, under the circumstances, quite natural. 
For the survivors could report, after their defeat by 
Abraham, that those who had rebelled against their 
authority " were destroyed by Anu, who rained fire 
upon them from heaven in punishment for their re- 
bellion." And so great was the importance at- 
tached to the account of it, that it is found in " the 
original Accadian text of the tablet as well as in the 
Assyrian translation of it" (Professor Sayce). This 
fragment of a very ancient tablet, which has been 
preserved to our day, confirms Abraham's account 
of the Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. It 
was translated in 1878, from the " Cuneiform. In- 
scriptions of Western Asia." 

There are eighteen lines of Accadian and Assyrian 
text, written a thousand miles distant from the 
place of destruction, which disclose a contemporary 
record of that catastrophe. 

But the ten verses which follow the account in 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 67 

Gen. 19 are to be ascribed to Moses, who enacted 
the infliction of a penalty for the sin there related, 
and in Deut. 23 : 3 forbade the descendants of Lot 
to enter the assembly of the Lord to the tenth 
generation. 

Properly enough such a character as Lot drops 
out of the patriarch's memoirs. It would seem 
that uncle and nephew never again met. Moses 
may have obtained the record of Amnion and Moab 
through the family of Judah or of Jethro. He 
certainly encountered them while on the way to 
Palestine, when they sent for Balaam to curse 
Israel. It was a poor return for Lot's being twice 
saved by Abraham's interposition ; but the ingrati- 
tude of their father reappeared in his descendants. 
(See Num. 22, 23, 24.) 

§ XII. — Some Domestic Events. 

The episode of the patriarch with Abimelech of 
Gerar in Gen. 20, which, like a two-edged sword, 
cuts both, was not derived from the Philistines. 
Nor was it the sort of matter to be revealed to 
Moses ; and it bears every mark of the record of a 
prime actor in it. Its ethical lesson is similar to 
that of chapter 12, and was early incorporated by 
Abraham into his family history. 

In chapter 21 we have the Divine announcement 
of Isaac's birth, of his circumcision when eight days 
old, his father being then a hundred years old, and 
that Sarah laughed for joy of having Isaac, whose 



68 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

name means, " he laughs ;" also the account of her 
wounded pride that the son of Hagar was mocking, 
perhaps quite playfully, at the pranks of the boy 
when Isaac was weaned. These are things which 
Abraham was the fittest person living to enter in 
the family register. They are not the matters for 
special revelation. So of the weaning of Isaac and 
the feast which celebrated that event, the father, 
or his scribe, would record it. Of Sarah's increas- 
ing jealousy of Hagar and Ishmael, whom her pride 
could no longer tolerate near her ; of their expulsion 
from among her thousand domestics ; of God's 
word to Abraham touching the lad and his mother, 
and how his strong parental love clave to his first- 
born, of whom Heaven promised to make a na- 
tion ; of Abraham's early rising in the morning, 
preparing the outfit of bread and a bottle-skin of 
water, perhaps also adding some silver current at 
that time, and then sending mother and boy away 
— these are just the things which Abraham would 
write down, so that in the future of his two sons 
each would know that their father had dealt kindly 
by them. This was attested later on by Ishmael as 
well as Isaac attending the burial of the patriarch. 
Nor was there any after strife between those sons. 

But the account of the wanderings of the lad and 
his mother in the wilderness of Beersheba ; of his 
weariness and fainting ; of her hearing the angel, 
who came to answer the voice of the lad whom God 
had heard ; of her seeing the water-well and refill- 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 69 

rig her bottle-skin for Ishmael ; of his reviving and 
growing to be an archer, and that Hagar took a wife 
for him out of her own native Egypt — all this extra 
covenant history was probably collected by Jndah, 
or obtained from Jethro, and incorporated by 
Moses. 

With 21 : 22 is resumed the register of Abraham. 
The interview of Abimelech and Phichol, which 
ended in a treaty and a present to seal it with those 
Philistine chiefs, all joining in a covenant at Beer- 
sheba ; the tree-planting, the calling upon a Jeho- 
vah, the Everlasting God, and Abraham's sojourn 
in the Philistines' land many days," are related by 
the patriarch. It is family history written at the 
time, and not a new revelation to another, nor later 
obtained from the Philistines. 

The first nineteen verses of chapter 22, touching 
the offering of Isaac, form one of the most striking 
episodes in the patriarch's life. It tries his faith 
in God, proves his character, tests his manhood, 
and illustrates the Divine wisdom in the choice of 
such a man to be the founder of a new nation for 
the Light of the world. For Messianic prepara- 
tion and the instruction of the nations in religion, 
it had a wide-reaching significance. And it was 
Heaven's prohibition of human sacrifice. Abraham 
was tempted to sacrifice Isaac, and then forbidden 
to do it, a substitute being provided in a ram for a 
burnt offering. The Divine manifesto was spread 
abroad. (See " Bible Growth and Religion," pp. 



70 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

58, 80, 81.) Every line of the record was written 
by Abraham, and every sentence of it was graven 
on his heart. Criticism is dumb before it. Analy- 
sis of it becomes reverent admiration. It also 
portrays the history of the chosen race, when 
condemned and scattered to the four winds ; 
and as Isaac was restored to his father, so shall 
Israel be restored to the favor of their covenant 
God. 

The last five verses are a part of the family rec- 
ords as kept by his brother Eahor in Haran, and 
introduce the genealogy of Eebekah, who became 
Isaac's wife. Hence their importance in the history 
of Israel. It is a reproach upon Hebrew strictness 
in such matters to suppose that such details would 
be neglected. 

And now another trial befell the patriarch. At the 
age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, Sarah, 
the proud mother of Isaac, died. The account is in 
Gen. 23, and the particulars of the purchase of the 
field of Machpelah from the sons of Heth. The 
treaty then made ; the stipulated price of 400 shekels 
of silver passing with the merchants of the time, 
being rather more than $200, but worth many times 
that amount now ; the procession to the gate of the 
city to acknowledge the transaction, like men before 
a notary public, or town clerk, to register the transfer 
of real estate to-day ; all was done to ratify the pur- 
chase by Abraham of that field and the cave in it, for 
a burying place, of the sons of Heth (23 : 20). 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 71 

The words, Ci the same is Hebron," v. 2, was a 
later addition. 

The care here manifested to make sure the trans- 
fer of the property thus publicly bought, was reason 
enough for the purchaser to enter the facts upon 
the papyrus, or prepared skins used for writing his 
memoirs. 

It was a princess who had died after a happy 
marriage of nearly a century. The burial was with 
due honor and circumstance. Abraham and Isaac 
were there, and the mourners of an immense house- 
hold — at least twelve hundred. It was a most im- 
pressive event in that family history. Here also, 
in after years, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were 
severally laid to rest, in presence of a mourning as- 
sembly, and none ever disputed their title to the 
land. That is strong evidence of a treaty and deed 
of transfer. And the evidence presented by recent 
decipherments of the habit of writing in Babylonia, 
whence Abraham came, in Palestine, where he long 
dwelt, and in Egypt, which he visited, would reduce 
him to an insignificant man, if he did not record the 
important events of his long career. The friend of 
God was not a dunce among men. 

Inscriptions show that some of those Hittites 
could wage successful war and make enduring trea- 
ties. It was about the time when Accadian litera- 
ture was in full bloom ; a century after Amenemhat 
I. wrote his " Instructions" to his son, probably 
the earliest literary production of a royal pen that 



72 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

has come down to us ; it was not far from the story 
of Saneha's flight from Thebes to Palestine, when 
writing was well known (" Ancient Empires of the 
East," p. 29 ; " Bible Growth and Religion," pp. 
75, 136-39.) 

In Gen. 24 we have confirmation of this writing 
habit in the records concerning the sworn agreement 
between Abraham and his chief servant touching 
the procuring of a wife for Isaac. With the utmost 
solemnity the elder was enjoined to visit Abraham's 
kindred in Haran, and there select the destined 
bride. The domestic scene is so minutely portray- 
ed : the daughters of the land tending and watering 
their flocks ; the recorded prayer of the servant ; 
the damsel's courtesy to him and her brother's hos- 
pitality ; the announcement of the purpose of his 
visit, attested by the costly presents he had brought 
and placed on Rebekah (verse 22); his cordial re- 
ception and welcome by Laban ; the speedy deliv- 
ery of his message from Abraham, with an account 
of his prosperity, and that he had a son who must 
not come to Haran, but a bride be taken to him 
from thence — all which is repeated with verbal ex- 
actness ; compare verses 4-9 with 34-41 ; also com- 
pare 12-24 with 42-48. The servant's prayer-test 
was answered. He could but ask that Rebekah 
should go with him to Isaac. He was in haste, but 
was not precipitate with his errand, feeling sure of 
success. And the consent of the family and of the 
damsel followed. Then other presents were given, 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 73 

vessels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment 
for Rebekah, with precious things for her mother 
and brother. Properly it was left for the damsel 
to decide whether she wished longer time for prepa- 
ration, or would go at once to her new home. " I 
will go," she said. Never was a more speedy be- 
trothal and never a happier marriage. For they 
all knew the character of Abraham and were as- 
sured about his son. So away sped Rebekah to 
Isaac. He was found in prayerful meditation in 
his field at the eventide. And Isaac took Rebekah, 
and she became his wife. 

Here are sixty-seven verses of one of the longest 
chapters in Genesis narrating scenes in domestic 
life whose importance to Israel and the world cen- 
tres in the fact that they account for the family 
origin of the chosen people. They are descended 
in blood relation from the same Semitic tribe. It 
is in Isaac and Rebekah, from the same ancestry, 
that the promise of Man's Redemption was sealed. 
In this grand fact alone centres our interest in that 
bridal meeting. The dismounting of the bride, the 
veiling of herself when Isaac approached, the report 
of the servant, and the noted omission of a feast, 
out of respect for the memory of Sarah — all this 
marks the account as made at the time. It is clearly 
narrative rather than the revelation of a later age. 
And the report of the servant, and the prayer he 
offered, and the answer of Rebekah, were incor- 
porated into the family history soon after their safe 
4 



74 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

arrival in the home of Abraham. They were mat- 
ters of too much importance to be relegated to 
strangers, and yet they were not matters of revela- 
tion, but facts to be recorded. An account written 
some centuries later would contain some errors : a 
marriage-feast would be inserted, and the present 
order of those sixty-seven verses of Gen. 24 would 
be changed. Bat as they now stand, with the part 
of the several actors at Haran and the later home- 
making, without a shade of color derived from 
Jacob's experiences with Laban in after days, we 
have Abraham, the chief servant, Eebekah and Isaac, 
all parties concerned in a true account, and attesting 
to this part of the family records of the covenant- 
race. With chapter 24 the personal memoirs of 
Abraham end, and Isaac continues the narrative. 

§ XIII. — Isaads Memoirs. 

These commence, we may assume, with Gen. 
25 : 1. Possibly verses 5 and 6 are by Abraham, 
but the account of Ishmael and his sons was given 
by Judah (verses 12-19). The < ' gifts" to Keturah's 
sons recall the gifts to Hagar ; compare 21 : 14 
with 25 : 6. They included enough of silver and 
herds to enable the sons to make a fair start in life. 
The half-brothers never troubled Isaac about a more 
generous share of their father's property. This 
would imply a fair apportionment upon the separa- 
tion. The patriarch was a rich man when he left 
Egypt. " He had sheep, and oxen, and asses> and 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 75 

camels, men servants and women servants ; was 
very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Gen. 12 : 
16 ; 13 : 2). His trained servants, born in his house- 
hold, numbered 318 when he pursued and routed 
Chedorlaomer with his allies. He lived prosper- 
ously after that time for about ninety-five years. 
So he must have left a large estate, which in these 
days of courts and surrogates would feed lawsuits 
for a generation. But the fair dealing of Abraham 
was so marked that no disturbance arose because of 
Isaac having more than Ishmael, or Midian, or 
Shuah. It suggests intelligence as well as nobility 
of character, which provided an equitable division 
of his property. His learning was more than that 
of a prosperous shepherd and chief of a tribe of 
nomads, and he had various accomplishments. 

If he was the original of " Father Orham" in 
Ur, and the peer of any in that place, or in Haran, 
when he left it ; if he was treated as a prince in 
Egypt by the Pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty ; if 
the kings of Canaan so treated him, and were wholly 
indebted to him for successful generalship in the 
defeat of Babylonian oppressors ; if the Priest-king 
of Salem and the King of Sodom blessed and hon- 
ored him ; if Abimelech of Gerar sought his alli- 
ance and made a treaty with him ; if be was able to 
converse in their different languages with the peo- 
ples whom he met in Haran, in Canaan, and in 
Egypt ; if, above and beyond all this, he was fa- 
vored with hearing Divine voices, seeing Divine 



76 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS, 

visions, and receiving Divine communications, which 
have been carefully preserved to this day, then it 
is but just to his memory to allow him sufficient 
skill to keep his own record of those things in which 
he was a most important actor, and so deeply con- 
cerned. Among other legacies he committed those 
records to his son Isaac as containing matters 
worthy of preservation. 

Moreover, at his death, Jacob and Esau were some 
fifteen years old, and able to remember much of 
what their grandfather had told them. Chapters 
25 to 28 : 9 narrate the additions made by Isaac, 
and how the blessing of his first-born was given to 
Jacob : " God Almighty bless thee, and give thee 
the blessing of Abraham, and to thy seed" (28 : 3, 4). 

This abrupt and unexpected change in the order 
of inheritance in the family, reversing the usual 
course in those days, implies the existence of a con- 
temporary record. Certainly, any later and unin- 
spired writer would not reverse it ; he would not 
see the reason for it ; being the facts of history, 
inspiration would not be required. So this change 
of the younger for the elder ; the bitter cry of 
Esau ; the cunning supplanting of Jacob and his 
consequent flight to Aram, though a puzzle to early 
readers of that family history, became clear enough 
to the inspired reviser who wrote for the chosen 
people in the era of the Exodus. To regard it as a 
New Revelation to Moses is to interpose a miracle 
where no miracle is needed. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 77 

Moreover, even in the brief section of the family 
register by Isaac, the supernatural certainly appears. 
Thus in Gen. 26 : 2-5 and verse 24, two Divine 
communications to Isaac are recorded. Though 
pressed by a famine like that which sent Abraham 
to Egypt, Isaac is told not to go down thither, for 
the Hyksos were then conquering that land, and the 
Divine covenant is renewed to him in exclusion 
of all his half-brothers. He was to seek refuge in 
Philistine Gerar. After his return and abode at 
Beersheba, Jehovah again appeared to him, and 
repeated His blessing upon him and upon his seed. 
And Isaac builded an altar there, and called upon 
the name of the Lord (verse 25). The treaty agree- 
ment with Abimelech, the feast, the digging of a 
well, whence it was called " the well of the oath," 
especially the recorded marriage of Esau to Judith, 
the daughter of Beeri, the Hittite : " Which were 
a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah," could 
be written by no one so well as by Isaac. Who 
else would state the inner, subject] vq feeling of the 
parents at the marriage of their son — the self-reliant 
Esau? His going later to Ishmael and taking his 
daughter Mahalath to wife, though intended to please 
his parents, was but an attempt to correct the irrev- 
ocable ; for he already had two Hittite wives (26 : 
34 ; 28 : 9). It was conduct which perhaps no 
contemporary, except his beloved father, would be 
likely to record. But with our knowledge of the 
then prevalent habit of writing, attested by recent 



78 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

decipherments, there can be no objection to saying 
that Isaac himself wrote down those matters at the 
time. It was his duty to do so. 

Who can read those tender, tearful words of Isaac 
and Esau (27 : 32-38) without deep sympathy for 
both father and son, as well as the conviction that 
they were recorded at the time ? It is the affection- 
ate conversation of disappointed parental and lilial 
love. It is desire against destiny. It is the human 
overruled by Heaven. The reader should study the 
passage. So assured was Esau of his fathers affec- 
tion for him, that he could not believe it possible 
that he had no blessing reserved for him before he 
died ! " And he cried with a great and exceeding 
bitter cry . . . Bless me, even me also, O my 
father ! . . . Hast thou not reserved a blessing 
for me ? Hast thou but one blessing, my father ? 
bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau 
lifted up his voice, and wept." Then his father 
gave him the blessing of earth, its fatness, and the 
dew of heaven, but not the blessing of Jehovah ; 
and he should serve his brother (verses 39, 40). 
There is nothing superior to it in love and pathos in 
Hebrew literature. Not a later revelation to 
Moses, it was the recorded words of Isaac and Esau, 
and was written by the father in the family history. 

This view is emphasized by what is said of the hate 
of Esau for Jacob, and his purposed revenge for 
loss of the Divine blessing. It was told to Rebek- 
ah, who told it to Jacob, and hastened his flight 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 19 

to her kindred in Haran. " Tarry there till thy 
brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget 
what thou hast done to him" (verses 41-45); for he 
was known to be of a generous disposition. Re- 
bekah's words to Isaac in verse 46, containing her 
reasons for sending Jacob to her brother Laban, 
with Isaac's chnrge to Jacob about taking a wife 
from his own kindred, and then giving him the 
blessing of God Almighty, and the blessing of 
Abraham, to him and his seed, which blessing God 
gave to Abraham (23 : 1-5), also belong to the reg- 
ister of Isaac, as well as the account of Esau in 
verses 6-9. Here end the memoirs of Isaac ; to 
which may be added the account of his death 
(35 i 27-29). But chapter 36 was by Jtidah, revised 
by Moses, giving the family register of Esau and his 
descendants. Perhaps verse 31 was by a writer as 
late as Samuel, who added that the list of "the 
Kings there given of Edom was before there reigned 
any king over Israel." Thus, all seeming difficulties 
in Genesis are cleared up, if we accept the now 
apparent fact of a Divine revelation written out by 
the patriarchs, and later adapted by the prophets 
to the needs of their age. 

Only to distinguish the other branches of Abra- 
ham's descendants from the Israelites is the record 
admitted into Genesis, and also to show that Job 
and his friends were of their kindred, though not 
of the covenant seed (36 : 10, 15, 28 ; 25 : 2) ; Job 
was of Uz and an Esauite. 



80 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

To suppose that a writing people, such as we 
know the Hebrews then were, did not record im- 
portant events in their family history, is absurd. 
Indeed, such exercises probably occupied much of 
their leisure. Those blessings of .Isaac are unique. 
His carefulness in using the Divine name marks him 
as a man accustomed to think. No late writer 
would so discriminate. Esau should become great, 
but not with the spiritual unfoldings and blessings 
of Jacob. Nay, he should serve his brother, till he 
broke his yoke from off him (27 : 38-40). Com- 
pare 36 : 6-8, " And Esau took his wives, and his 
sons, and his daughters, and all his household, his 
cattle, his beasts, and all his substance, and went 
into the country of Mount Seir, from the face of 
his brother Jacob." Their riches and pursuits re- 
quired a larger land than Canaan, in which they 
were but sojourners ; and Esau remembered that 
the inheritance of the home estate belonged to 
Jacob, by his own agreement and his father's will. 
These are so many indications of an early record, 
and also account for differences in style and lan- 
guage. They disclose the several authors of Gen- 
esis. The early patriarchs were skilled in writ- 
ing, and taught it to their sons. According to 
Eupolemus, Abraham resided during his stay in 
Egypt in the sacred city of On or Heliopolis, and 
at that seat of learning and religion he taught 
the Egyptians astronomy and arithmetic. So Raw- 
linson. 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 81 

§ XIV. — The Memoirs of Jacob. 

These evidently begin at Gen. 28 : 10, " And 
Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran." 
Then he gives the events of his journey, his won- 
derful dream of the angels passing up and down the 
ladder, and the appearance of the Lord standing 
above it, and identifying Himself to him as the 
Lord, the God of Abraham and of Isaac. Then the 
promise : " The land whereon thou liest, to thee 
will I give it, and to thy seed. It shall greatly in- 
crease and spread abroad, and be a blessing to all 
families of men." Notice verse 15, " And, behold, 
I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever 
thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land ; 
for I will not leave thee, until I have done that 
which I have spoken to thee of." As well ask a 
bride to forget her husband as to suppose that 
Jacob did not record that Divine promise. It made 
such an impression upon him that he awoke out of 
his sleep, and said, u Surely the Lord is in this 
place ; and I knew it not." That abode of God 
and gate of heaven filled him with fear and rever- 
ence. He rose early in the morning, and set up a 
pillar-stone of witness, pouring oil upon it, and 
vowed unto God, according to the tenor of the 
dream, that if God would be with him, and keep 
him in the way he went, and give him bread to 
eat, and raiment to put on, so that he returned to 
his father's house in peace, then, he says, " Shall 



82 THE WRITERS OE GENESIS. 

the Lord be my God, and this stone, set up for a 
pillar, shall be God's house : and of all that Thou 
givest me I will surely give a tenth unto Thee" 
(verses 16-22). Such important details were not 
long left to memory, and the change of name from 
Luz to Beth-el emphasized the importance of the 
vision and covenant. It explained that not in Ish- 
mael, not in Esau, but in Jacob was the line of de- 
scent of the people of Jehovah. 

Abraham was given to understand it in his hun- 
dredth year ; Isaac was given to understand it in 
his twofold blessing of his sons ; and now Jacob, 
who had been rather sharp, through his mother's 
instigation, in dealing with Esau, is enabled to un- 
derstand that it was not by any act of his own, 
though accepted by his brother, but by this prom- 
ise and renewal of covenant by God Himself with 
him, that he is appointed the head of his tribe and 
the blessed of Heaven. It was a transaction which 
concerned him and his descendants, and which he 
carefully wrote out for them. They were not mat- 
ters for later revelation, nor to be gathered from 
varying traditions, but were duly entered in the 
family register by its newly appointed chief. While 
in Laban's service, Jacob had opportunity for lit- 
erary exercises, and the skill he displayed in after 
times, upon his return home, while dwelling in 
Shechem, and when he stood before Pharaoh and 
" blessed him," indicating his feeling of equality 
with, if not his superiority over the Egyptian king 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 83 

— all this indicates capacity and mental training 
which easily includes the ability to write. 

Who but Jacob could write Gen. 28 : 10-22 ? 
Who but the lover of Rachel, who kissed her at the 
well, and would not be content with her sister 
Leah, could write chapter 29 : 1-35, making Judah 
the son of Leah, but not of Rachel the beloved ? 
Surely if internal evidence has any weight in this 
matter, it carries the proof of contemporaneous 
authorship on the face of the record. Our text 
makes the two most prominent names and charac- 
ters in the after history of Israel to be the sons of 
the less loved Leah. Levi and Judah were her 
sons. It is evidence of a Divine purpose overrul- 
ing human choice and affection ; a purpose seen in 
the appointment of Isaac instead of Ishmael, of 
Jacob instead of Esau, and of the sons of Leah in- 
stead of Rachel's beloved boys. Such unexpected- 
ness marks alike the origin and the inspiration of 
the account. For nothing but God's guidance of 
later copyists of these records would allow it to 
stand as we find it. The best days of Israel were 
marked by reverence for her priests, and her golden 
age was full of the praises of David, yet her ancient 
writings recorded that Judah and Levi were the 
sons of the less loved but first wife of Jacob. So, 
in the face of all learned criticism of these annals, 
it is safe to affirm that no later writer, when the 
priests were powerful and David was king, would 
have failed to represent Levi and Judah as the sons 



84 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

of the best loved Rachel. That the text makes 
them the sons of Leah stamps its origin. That, 
amid all the changes in dynasty and ritual after 
Solomon, the text remained and remains to our day, 
making Levi and Judah Leah's sons, seals alike its 
inspired truthfulness and its Divine preservation. 
Jacob first wrote it in his family register. 

The entire contents of chapter 30 are also by 
Jacob. In 31 : 1, 2, we find additional proof : 
" Jacob heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, 
he hath taken away all that was our father's. . . . 
And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban . . . 
it was not toward him as formerly." These are 
the observations of a contemporary recorder of 
what he saw and heard. But verse 3 is a Divine 
revelation : " The Lord said unto Jacob, Return 
Unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred ; 
and I will be with thee." He proceeds at once to 
arrange for his return ; pie had a joint interview 
with Rachel and Leah, and recounted his griev- 
ances ; he also told them of God's appearances to 
him at Beth- el and more recently. And Rachel 
and Leah — 'the order of names marks the record as 
Jacob's, placing the best loved first — answered, Is 
there any portion or inheritance for us in our father's 
house ? Are we not counted of him strangers ? 
There was nothing in the after-history of Laban's 
immediate descendants which provoked the hostil- 
ity of Israel, and so only its truth could have in- 
duced a contemporary writer to detail these partic- 



ABRAHAM TO JL'DAH. 85 

ulars so disparaging to Laban. So also were the 
blending of the human with the Divinein the flight 
of Jacob and the pursuit after him (verses 22-30), 
with loss of his gods — probably images of the Moon- 
god, who was worshipped in Haran (verses 30-35). 

Jacob's indignation at Laban's charging him with 
stealing his gods, or the teraphim with which he 
worshipped, could not have been invented by any 
late historian of Israel. Under Judges like Gideon 
and Jephthah such conduct would cause no surprise. 
In the account of Micah, the Ephraimite, and of 
the Danites, who despoiled him at once of priest and 
ephod, images and teraphim, we find an aggravated 
parallel. While after Solomon, who built chapels 
for the use of his foreign wives in the worship of 
their gods, no writer would invent the just indig- 
nation of Jacob, who had so recently heard God 
speaking to him. The passage is, therefore, a time- 
mark of ancient authorship, and suggests that the 
accused Jacob was its writer. Compare Gen. 31 : 
22-42 ; Jud. -8 : 24-28 ; 11 : 1-40 ; 17 5 18 ; 1 
Kings 11 : 1-10. 

So Gen. 31 : 43-55, stating Laban's claim as the 
father of his daughters to their children, and to all 
that Jacob had with them, even his cattle, and all 
born unto him, would appear absurd to a Hebrew 
after Moses, whose legislation made each father the 
head of his family, his wife being adopted into the 
family of her husband. I indeed marvel that men 
of learning should overlook such time-marks of au- 



86 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

thorship. None but Jacob could have penned the 
account of the treaty-making, where " no man was 
witness" (verse 50) ; but God was witness, the pil- 
lar-heap was witness, and their mutual oath was 
witness. While the invocation of the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Nahor, as their God, was 
proper forihe time, yet that Jacob should " swear 
by the Fear of his father Isaac," and then " offer 
sacrifice upon the mount" is unique and original, 
of high antiquity, and not according to the law of 
Moses (verses 53, 54). The good-by in verse 55 
is the record of Jacob. 

Moreover, Jacob alone could write chapter 32. 
The vision of angels at Mahanaim, the name he 
gave to the place where he saw the hosts of heaven 
in readiness to help him ; his message to Esau, the 
exact number and names of the presents to him, 
also the number of his brother's escort, with the 
feelings the news caused in Jacob ; his dividing his 
flocks and belongings into two bands, so that if 
smitten, one party might escape, suggest the pru- 
dence of the maker of the second bargain with Laban, 
and of the vow at Beth-el. Even his prayer to the 
God of his fathers is characteristic ; it is part bio- 
graphical, part reminiscent, and part petition (32 : 
9-12). No one but Jacob could write that prayer. 
He also wrote verses 13-23. So of that memorable 
vision at Peniel (verses 24-30), whose name means 
"the face of God," where alone with a Divine 
Person Jacob wrestled during that anxious night 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 87 

and obtained his desire, when he was left with a 
blessing and a mark — who but the wrestler himself 
could write it ? Whether in vision or in essence, 
Jacob believed that he there saw God, and though 
his life was preserved, jet he ever afterward bore 
about the Divine mark (verse 31). But verse 32 
was by a later copyist and reviser. Chapters 33 
and 34 were by Jacob, who had personal knowl- 
edge of ail therein related. The return to Beth-el 
in chapter 35, and the building of an altar there, 
another appearance of God to him, proving Him- 
self by recalling His former appearance when Jacob 
fled from his brother, and again blessing him, and 
changing his name to Israel, and the promise to 
give that land to him and to his seed after him, and 
the consecrated pillar set up in memorial of it — this 
was the record of Jacob of those striking incidents 
at Luz, which he called El-beth-el, because God 
there appeared to him (35 : 7). 

There, too, Kebekah's nurse, Deborah, died (verse 
8), she who had watched over him from infancy, 
and she was buried at the oak of weeping in Beth-el. 
Who but this chief among his contemporaries would 
so honor his old nurse at Beth-el, and enroll her 
name in the register of his family % Later in the 
history she would have been buried without the city 
walls, without the town limits, but this ancient 
record makes her remains interred beneath, or close 
to the oak of the sanctuary. It proves the origin 
and antiquity of these memoirs. 



88 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Then, while on the way from Beth- el to Ephrath, 
beloved Rachel, with the birth of Benjamin, the 
son of his right hand, died, and was buried. And 
Jacob set a pillar upon her grave ; and there it re- 
mained when a later writer copied the record of 
Jacob (verse 20). The rest of the chapter was also 
by Jacob, who had not then learned to write his 
name Israel, reverently shrinking from using the 
Divine name in it (viz., El, verse 22, last sentence, 
and verse 29). But verse 21 and first four fifths of 
22 may have been by a later hand. Significant is 
the statement in verse 29, And Isaac gave up the 
ghost, and died, being old and full of days. And 
his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. The placing 
of Esau before Jacob shows the writing to be 
Jacob's. No later writer would have done it ; and 
with it the Memoirs of Jacob merge into those of 
Judah. 

§ XV. — Memoirs of Judah. 

On page 79 I have assigned chapter 36, except 
verse 31, to Judah ; verse 31 may have been added 
by Samuel, who studied and copied the Hebrew 
Scriptures. The chapter itself narrates the genesis 
of the Edomites as descended from Esau, who was 
superseded by his brother Jacob, as the heir to the 
Divine covenant, and the grand figure in it. Per- 
haps Esau wrote the original sketch, which was filled 
out and rearranged by Judah, and thus handed down 
to Moses. It concerns the cousins of Israel through 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 89 

Esau, and contains nothing opposed to our view of 
the original writers of Genesis. 

But chapter 37 is a different writing. It intro- 
duces the matchless story of Joseph and his 
brethren, thus preparing for the going down to 
Egypt. It recounts Divine providences and over- 
sight, the feeding of flocks, the dislike of Joseph, 
and the selling him by his brothers to the Midian- 
ites, who were their cousins in descent, and of 
whose origin we read in chapter 25. Some parts of 
the story were revelations from God, some were 
known to one brother, some to another, some to all 
the twelve and to Jacob. The time of these oc- 
currences may be assigned to the era of the Hyksos, 
who were making their conquests in Egypt when 
Isaac was told not to go there, and the writer of 
them was Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah. 

The evidences of reading and writing then are 
conclusive, and Judah had equal opportunities with 
any of his brethren. In chapter 37 he figures as 
the adviser of his brothers, while chapter 38 tells 
of his signet ring and bracelets. He was probably 
the recognized Scribe of the tribes, and then about 
forty years old. 

That Judah had a commanding influence over 
his brothers is seen in 37 : 26, 27 ; and he inter- 
poses for them with his father in 43 : 8-10 ; while 
in 44 : 14, 16, 18-34, he addresses Joseph on their 
behalf. After Joseph made himself known to his 
brethren, and sent for his father to come down to 



90 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Egypt, then Jacob commissioned Judali to go be- 
fore, and prepare for him in Goshen ; the Septu- 
agint reads " at the city of Heroes, in the land of 
Barneses (46 : 28 ; 47: 11). Nor is it straining a point 
in the narrative to say that as it is the records of 
Judah we are reading, who does not give the name of 
the agent, the " one" who told Joseph that his 
father was sick was Judah, and the " one" who 
told Jacob that Joseph was coming to see him was 
Judah (48 : 1, 2). So in the grand benediction of 
the patriarch he said : i( Judah, thy brethren shall 
praise thee : thy hand shall he in the neck of thine 
enemies ; thy father's children shall bow down be- 
fore thee." Then, very poetically, he compares 
him to a lion for strength and leadership, and de- 
clares by prophetic inspiration, " A sceptre shall 
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver or ruler's 
staff from between his feet, until he, Shiloh, come, 
and he shall have the obedience of the peoples." 
As a sign of royalty, " he shall wash his garments 
in wine, and his clothing in the blood of grapes." 
Professor Briggs interprets it, " Judah will assume 
the leadership of Israel, and lead the nation in its 
march until they obtain their inheritance" (" Mes- 
sianic Prophecy," p. 96). 

Gen. 49 : 8-12 has been translated in the Revised 
Version by some twenty-live of the best Hebrew 
and Greek scholars in England and America, and 
compared with the Septuagint version made three 
centuries before any Christian controversy. They 






ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 91 

agree in assigning the sceptre to Judah until Mes- 
siah come. He whose right it is, who has the obedi- 
ence of the peoples. At Shiloh the tabernacle was 
set up, and the wanderings of Israel ceased for 
seven hundred years. But while Judah led the 
tribes to conquest and the inheritance of their prom- 
ised lands, he can hardly be said to have held the 
ruler's staff before David was enthroned us King of 
Israel. Not till then may royal prerogatives be at- 
tributed to him, when he could wash his garments 
in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes, and 
his teeth be white with milk. 

The whole blessing of Jacob has especial reference 
to the positions of his sons in Canaan ; to the reg- 
nancy of Judah, the abode of Zebulon and Dan, 
and the character of Benjamin. After the return 
from Exile Judah was the representative and gov- 
erning tribe amid various fortunes down to Herod 
the Great. To David's son and Lord shall the gath- 
ering of the peoples be. 

Only some such view of the history and the text 
is an adequate exposition of what Jacob by the 
prophetic spirit so grandly uttered. But to make 
Judah's supremacy begin and end with arrival at 
the place Shiloh is to descend from the heights 
of heaven to the depths of earth, and to bestow 
upon him very inconspicuous honor. Whatever 
the word Shiloh means, the related verses de- 
mand an adequate explanation. There surely was 
no royalty ascribed to Judah at Shiloh. Not till 



92 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

David and Iris sons does it find sufficient realiza- 
tion. 

The passage Gen. 49 : 57 is evidence that, at 
that time, Levi had not been set apart as the priestly 
tribe of Israel, which came to pass under Moses. 
Yerse 10 looked beyond Egypt, beyond Shiloh, to 
where the praises of Jehovah ascended from Zion. 

As Judah was present at the death of his father, 
and attended his burial in the field of Machpelah, 
he had personal knowledge of all that occurred. 
He witnessed Joseph's tearful kiss of the departed, 
and was one of the mourners for seventy days. 
Probably he was the " messenger" sent by his 
brethren to Joseph, after the return from Canaan, 
to arrange respecting their future in Egypt, or pro- 
posed departure from it (50 : 15-22). The record 
also implies that Judah survived Joseph. And it 
connects itself, so to say, with Ex. 13 : 19 : " Moses 
took the bones of Joseph with him ; for he had 
straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God 
will surely visit you ; and ye shall carry up my 
bones away hence with you." So Jacob command- 
ed in Gen. 50 : 25. 

Thus we find a duly appointed and competent 
Scribe, who was also the recognized chief of the 
tribes. How soon Judah's ofiicial writing began 
may be inferred from the narrative. The blow at 
the loss of Joseph was so severe upon Jacob, that 
he gave up all interest in life ; he rent his clothes, 
put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many 



A3r.AZ_-.v : ; --;: m-:. -"••5 

days. His other sons and daughters vainly tried to 
comfort him ; bnt he refused, sav: _ 1 will go 

downimo :Le ^re^e ::mo ny j:: m:em:r^ 87 : ■'■' -. 
35). Wherefore Jndah took np the pen, added 
chapter 37 to the family history, and, of conrse, 
wrote chapter 3S. He only conld write it. An i 

Le learr.e:: :r:m Lis :a:Le: :.L :Le :ra LLLms :: :Le 
chosen race, the interview with Esau, and the later 

imermew ~::L PLermL. Hi- ^renins m:l ::■:::. :::~. 
Lis memrr.::L:ies mi re:mmizei iemersLie emie: 
Lis : me: \ ke iesmm-.Te Jni.m is me omeiei S :H. 2 
-:: :Le Tribes. 
Even when his sons brought him the glad tidings 



He was about one hundred and thirrv years old. 
" And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the 

nmm:. arm s.vii. ~ \. ; •:•" . ':-.::'' ! A::i Le s:L:L Here 
am I. Ami God seii. I am :Le Go.: .: mvmmer : 
fear not to go down into I^rypt ; for I will there 
make of :Lee i great nation. I will go dew- with 

:Lee i.mo EgJ?" : and I will snreiv e:ie_; :Lee "p 
again : and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine 
eyes" (Gen. 46 : 2-4). For thirteen years hope- 

iess en i iemessei. :Lis wisio:: ::>mmr:ei :mi re- 
assnrei Lim. Hr :■■ :mi mw ieave me Lmi :L Lis 
: mers m i seek ?. n" L;me wi:L Lis ieLmi s:n 
in H_wr>:. He told the Divine omunication to 

Lis sens, mi Jmim wno:e :: in Lis memoirs. It 
:er:.vi:Lv — .-.s n:: :-. reveALon :o Moses: :.:L no 



94 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

uninspired writer would have applied it to Jacob. 
Ordinary men would have hastened to the long-lost 
son as soon as informed of his abode and pros- 
perity ; that Jacob hesitated marks the antiquity of 
the incident and Judah's record of it. 

Next to Joseph he is the most conspicuous char- 
acter in that inimitable story, and probably received 
from his distinguished brother those parts of it in 
which he himself was not an actor or observer. So, 
while the several portions may be regarded as a 
joint contribution to the narrative, it was Judah 
who arranged and moulded that historic gem which 
is the delight of the young and the admiration of 
all ages. As it became known among the Egyp- 
tians, it found at least one imitator, whose version 
has come down to us. (See " Tale of Two Broth- 
ers,'' in Brugsch's " Egypt Under the Pharaohs, 1 ' 
vol. i., pp. 309-11 ; " Records of the Past," vol. 
vi., pp. 151-56). Of the residence in Egypt we 
have only glimpses of its commencement and its 
close, but no history. 

Such were the records from which Moses learned 
the history of his people ; and from the Divine 
promise to Abraham he supposed, according to St. 
Stephen, that God, by his hand would deliver them. 
I see no other way of understanding all the facts 
presented. The records had been written before 
Moses, and he learned the national history and the 
Divine purpose from them. What else was he 
doing during the ten 3 r ears before his hasty action 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 95 

and sudden flight but studying the annals of his 
race ? 

He had the leisure and the means to procure a 
complete copy of all the records of his people. St. 
Stephen suggests they were known, and Moses's 
conduct implies the same. He certainly was famil- 
iar with them, and probably carried them with him 
into exile. I am also disposed to think that he re- 
wrote and perhaps embellished them, adding here 
and there a word of explanation. Quite likely he 
was inspired to enlarge the first portions and to in- 
corporate some things which he learned from Jethro. 
But however much or little his revision, as we are 
not told of an appointed successor to Judah as the 
Scribe of the Tribes, it is to Moses, as an author- 
ized agent, that the Book was early attributed ; 
from him it was received by Israel, after his Divine 
commission as the leader and lawgiver of his peo- 
ple. The supernatural and the inspired are woven 
into its texture ; Divine revelations and family 
events compose its substance, the Book being an 
Eclectic History of the early ages of mankind and 
a Contemporary History of the Chosen People. 
For Abraham wrote his chapters, not for the chil- 
dren of Lot, nor for the children of Nahor, but for 
the seed of Isaac ; Isaac wrote not for Esau, nor 
for Ishmael, but for Jacob ; Jacob wrote for his 
sons ; while Judah wrote for Israel, and Moses 
wrote and revised for Israel and the world. 

After the death of Moses and of Joshua the tribe 



-96 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

of Judah takes its appointed place as leader of 
Israel : They asked of the Lord, Who shall go up 
for ns first against the Canaanites ? And the Lord 
said, Judah shall go up ; behold, I have delivered 
the land into his hand (Judges 1:1,2). Moreover, 
after the rejection of Saul, who was of the tribe of 
Benjamin, David, of the tribe of Judah, was 
anointed King. And notwithstanding the Disrup- 
tion of the Kingdom under his grandson, the fam- 
ily of David continued to reign down to, if not, in- 
deed, long after the Captivity. The sceptre did 
not really depart from Judah till Messiah -came. 

The Book of Jasher (62 : 23) records the death 
of Judah when one hundred and twenty-nine years 
old, and that he was embalmed, and put in a coffin, 
and given into the hands of his children. It was 
an honor done to his father and to Joseph, and 
marks Judah above his other brethren. The tra- 
dition is significant. 

§ XYL — Conclusion. 

Now, if it be asked what is gained by adopting 
the proposed authorship thus presented, I answer 
with St. Paul, Much, every way. It removes root 
and branch the guesses of Kuenenism, Wellhausen- 
ism, and the rhetoric of Kenan. Genesis and the 
Pentateuch cannot be ascribed to a human origin 
and development. The first Biblical book thus 
becomes true history, so far as it is history ; true sci- 
ence for that age, so far as it treats of scientific 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 97 

matters, and a true Revelation from God touching 
all matters above human knowledge, whether of 
celestial beings, or of Divine covenant, or of special 
providences in first saving a doomed world, and 
then in preparation for the Redeemer of mankind. 
The uniqueness of the covenant with Abraham 
stamps its Divine origin. 

Neither he nor any other man then could have de- 
vised and thought it out. He had travelled twelve 
hundred miles, had settled almost alone among 
strangers, had acknowledged the God El-Elyon of 
Melchizedek, and had paid him tithes. He was the 
first missionary of the world. It was a novel way 
to found a new nation and a new religion. He cer- 
tainly had no scheme in his mind like other found- 
ers in later times, like Buddha or Mahomet. The 
setting up of a new religious cult was at first the 
farthest from his intention. Not till he was ninety- 
nine years old did he receive the seal of circum- 
cision, the blood of which typified its value, being 
the symbol of life and the appointed means for cov- 
ering sin. That was not Abraham's, but Jehovah's 
method. So when the system was completed under 
Moses, blood was the symbol which atoned for the 
sin of man. In old Canaan and at Sinai blood was 
the seal of Divine covenant. It was not Abraham, 
nor Moses, but God who appointed it to be so. 
The symbol of life was Jehovah's symbol of for- 
giveness. In Abel's sacrifice and at Moriah it was 
disclosed how atonement for sin could be obtained. 
5 



98 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

Moreover, the blood of circumcision linked and 
connected itself with the blood of the Passover-lamb. 
The blood of a lamb and the blood of man, centuries 
apart in time, was made the symbol of the Divine 
acceptance of the sinner. But while the signifi- 
cance was alike in each era, the plan was beyond the 
comprehension of Abraham and of Moses. Neither 
of them could have devised such a method, which 
is proof of its revelation. It was Heaven ordained. 

The records also disclose unity and completeness. 
In the genealogy before the Deluge we find the 
heads of ten families, from Adam to Noah ; though 
there may have been more, ten are mentioned. So 
in the genealogy of Abraham, ten heads of families 
trace him back to Shem. It is the number of com- 
pleteness. A list of ten progenitors traces him up 
to Shem, and another list of ten traces him up from 
Noah to Adam. 

For suppose it can be shown, as Dr. Winch ell 
and others have attempted, that other beings like 
man once occupied this earth, yet the records of 
Noah's family and of Abraham's show their descent 
in direct line from Adam, who was God-created. 
And the law of Deuteronomy 23 : 2, 3 was in fact 
observed. Lot's children, Amnion and Moab, could 
not enter the assembly of Jehovah unto the tenth 
generation, for all future ages. While the records 
of Noah, of Abraham, and of Moses testify to the 
purity of Israel's descent for twice ten generations 
in regular succession. It is a very ancient example 



ABRAHAM TO JTJDAH. 99 

of the importance of family purity, of family de- 
scent, and of contemporary records. 

This explains the great care afterward seen in 
preserving the genealogy of the Hebrews. One- 
third of the I Chronicles is occupied with tables of 
descent. It is seen in Ezra 2 : 61, 62 in a remark- 
able ruling which excluded certain claimants from 
the priest's office, because of mixed marriages. 
Compare Neh. 7 : 63, 64. Descendants of Barzil- 
lai, the Gileadite, were thus rejected. But a rule 
which had been operative from time immemorial, 
from Abraham to Moses, to David and Ezra, must 
have been believed to be of Divine appointment. 
It was before the Law of Sinai, and is another il- 
lustration of very early records. The rule is found 
back of Ezra, back of Moses, and has its roots in 
the ten generations of Abraham and the ten genera- 
tions of Noah. 

As moderns have their correspondents the world 
over, so the ancient leaders of Egypt and the Ori- 
ent had their scribes, who recorded their achieve- 
ments. Thus Sneferu and Sargon and the early 
Pharaohs inscribed their deeds, and perhaps an 
image of .themselves on the rocks of the Wady 
Magharah, or of Cyprus, or on some obelisk or 
temple. But the Patriarchs built an altar, or mar- 
ried a wife, or dug a well, or made a treaty, and 
then wrote an account of their doings in the register 
of the Tribes, and so preserved the record for their 
descendants. Especially careful were they in all 



100 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

matters concerning Divine covenant and their rela- 
tions to it and to God. Hence the early writing of 
Genesis. 

Perhaps too much is said about European scepti- 
cism, and calling this Old Testament book and that 
New Testament book legendary and mythical, writ- 
ten when and by whom nobody knows ! It is alike 
destructive of Christian belief and of Christian 
growth. First, the difficulties of Revelation are 
magnified, and then the Scriptures are rejected be- 
cause of those difficulties ! 

The truth and strength of my argument find 
support in the evidence for very early writing as 
attested by the inscriptions of Babylonia and Egypt. 
It is conceded by M. Renan, who meets it in the 
weakest possible way — viz., by suggesting that the 
discoveries of Tel-el-Amarna are forgeries ! To 
forge a record which nobody living could write is 
not yet among our modern achievements. But the 
argument here presented, as well as that in " Bible 
Growth and Religion," does not depend on the 
Tel-el-Amarna inscriptions, nor upon the statue of 
Rameses II., found at Bubastis, from which Ram- 
eses had erased the name of a Hyksos king and in- 
scribed his own instead ; nor upon the mummy of 
Sekenen-Ra, of Thebes, showing that his skull 
had been cloven through, causing his death, prob- 
ably while fighting against the Hyksos. I say, my 
argument does not depend upon these disclosures, 
though they tend to strengthen it. We go back of 



ABRAHAM TO JUDAH. 101 

Kameses II. and Sekenen-Ra to the inscriptions of 
the twelfth dynasty ; to the Hittite writing of He- 
bron and Zoan ; to the illustrations of Syrian visitors 
in Egypt ; to the inscriptions upon the obelisks, in 
the tombs, upon early temples and pyramids ; to 
records of the fourth dynasty, of the second dynasty, 
and, according to Professor Sayce, of the first 
dynasty. We find the inscriptions of Sargon I. and 
of his son, of Khammuragas, of Kuder-Mabug and 
Arioch mentioned in Gen. 14, and the artistic skill 
mentioned in Gen. 4 : 19-22. 

The rocks of Cyprus and of Sinai, the inscriptions 
of Babylon concerning Marduk, the Messiah, and 
of Istar weeping for Tammuz, like Eve for Abel, 
are not forgeries. Nor are the stone cylinders now 
in the British Museum which represent a man and 
a woman in the act of plucking fruit from a tree, 
and a serpent erect standing behind the woman. 
Nor is the inscription about the scorpion-men, the 
cherubim-like guardians of the way to the tree of 
life and to Eden itself, translated in'June, 1889, by 
Mr. Boscawen. Nor is there any doubt of the leg- 
ends aud their meaning, which we call Deluge 
Legends in Chaldea, with their confirmation in 
Egypt, India, and China. Their account agrees 
substantially with our Genesis, and with the arts 
named in Gen. 4 disclose a degree of skill which 
implies the ability to read and write. How else 
was preserved the record of the ten Adamic gener- 
ations down to Noah, and of the ten generations 



102 THE WRITERS OF GENESIS. 

from Noah to Abraham ? And as " probability is 
the very guide of life," we have the very great 
probability which the records disclose that Abraham 
and his successors wrote the Genesis which was 
early studied, and later revised by Moses. This 
accounts for all peculiarities of style and language. 

It is a sufficient answer to all modern analysts of 
the text of our Genesis, and is as probable as the 
literature of Babylonia and Egypt can make it. 
The forgery of those literatures is impossible, while 
their existence in the days of Abraham and his sons 
all but demonstrates the patriarchs as writing me- 
moirs of their times. 

In the name of Him who gave the Revelation in 
our Genesis, 1 entreat the reader, both of the crit- 
ical and the traditional school, to pause and recon- 
sider my suggestions before relegating them among 
the theories which may be true. Patriarchal writ- 
ing honors reason, explains conceded difficulties, 
and enthrones God in the Book of Genesis. If 
used as a provisional basis of exposition, and tested 
by experience, the unfoldings of the future will best 
determine whether acceptance shall be final and 
satisfactory. 



IT. 



INTEBNAL EVIDENCE FOE AN EAELY 
WEITEE OF ISAIAH 40-66. 

All critics, we are told, concede a similarity of 
style in the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah 
with that of the first forty chapters. And similar 
technical expressions are common in each division ; 
for example, " The Holy One of Israel" and 
" The Servant of Jehovah." Similar Hymns are 
common to both sections of the Prophecies, while 
there is a noticeable infrequency of " visions ;" 
thus chapter 6 in the first division and chapter 63 
in the second part stand alone. 

Ancient tradition, the Jewish Synagogue, Ec- 
cles. 48 : 24, 25, quotations by the later prophets, 
by Josephus, and by early Christian writers, as well 
as its long-time place in the Canon, all attribute the 
Book of Isaiah to one and the same Author. The 
purpose of this inquiry, however, is not the unity 
of its authorship, but its comparatively early date. 
Prophecies of the highest order, stirring exhorta- 
tions, and very remarkable history are common to 
both sections. By examining portions of the last 



104 THE WRITER OP ISAIAH 

twenty-seven chapters, we expect to find an approx- 
imate date for the writing. 

In chapter 40 : 18-26 we have the demand, " To 
whom will ye liken God ? or what likeness will ye 
compare unto Him ? The graven image, a work- 
man melted it, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over 
with gold, and casteth for it silver chains." Then 
follows a grand description of Jehovah's power, 
who again demands, " To whom then will ye liken 
Me ? Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath 
created these heavenly things, calling them all by 
name . . . not one is lacking." 

Now, whoever cannot appreciate the force of the 
prophet's argument and the grandeur of his lan- 
guage of course cannot see the utter absurdity of 
such deli verances in Palestine at any time after the 
destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., when idolatry 
ceased there, or of an Exile Jew so addressing the 
Assyrian or Babylonian Gentile. For the Jew it 
was too late ; for the Gentile it was a century too 
early. Even if the writer of these chapters was 
authenticated by the Prophet Jeremiah, since he 
died in about 572 B.C., it would be singularly ab- 
surd to make such a comparison of Jehovah with 
graven images at that time ; for none remained in 
the ruined city of Zion ; only the poorest of the 
people were left ; and Gentiles were jubilant vic- 
tors, not disposed to regard those who derided their 
deities. Nebuchadnezzar effected a large clearance 
in Judaea. So a prophet of the Lord would not 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 105 

stultify himself by exhorting to forsake the wor- 
ship of graven images from 586 to 570 B.C., nor, 
perhaps, till after Cyrus took Babylon. 

I have tried repeatedly to apply the comforting 
character and the shepherding character disclosed 
in chapter 40 to Cyrus, but in vain ; he never ap- 
proaches the standard, and there was little of the 
herald of good tidings about him. He was as astute 
a politician as an accomplished soldier, but preacher 
of righteousness and the worship of Israel's God 
he was not in any such way or degree as to fulfil 
the description in chapter 40. The Church ap- 
points the reading of the first eleven verses for St. 
John Baptist Day, which suggests her opinion of 
their interpretation. 

Compare Jer., chapters 10, 50, 51, which, how- 
ever, were written before their fulfilment. The 
great similarity in the contents is conclusive for an 
early date of the Isaianic passages. Thus, touch- 
ing idolatry we read, " Behold, their works are 
vanity and nought : their molten images are wind 
and confusion" (Is. 41 : 29). I invite the critics to 
prove that this passage was not written before the 
Fall of Jerusalem, in 586. After that date prophets 
had no occasion to denounce idolatry in Judaea. 
But see the accentuation of it in chapter 42 : 8, " I 
am Jehovah ; . . . my glory will I not give to 
another, neither my praise unto graven images.' ' 
And verse 24 asks, "Who gave Jacob for a spoil, 
and Israel to the robbers? did not Jehovah ?" 
5* 



106 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

This is a time- mark, and shows the passage was 
written after the capture of Samaria by Sargon II., 
when Jacob was spoiled and Israel robbed, but be- 
fore the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar — 
i.e., some time between 721 and 586 b.c. These 
dates are as well defined as that of our Ameri- 
can Independence. With 586 idolatry ceased in 
Judaea, and no writer like the author of 42 : 17 
would denounce the " trust in graven images, and 
the invocation of molten images." If the writer is 
supposed to have lived in Babylonia, he would not 
dare to denounce the idolatry of Babylonians. But 
put the deliverance of the text before 586, and all 
is easy of exposition. An inspired writer explains 
what even a truthful historian leaves inexplicable. 
Hence, I prefer the one miracle of prophecy to the 
manifold confusions arising from assigning it to a' 
later date. 

So, again, in chapter 43 : 1, 3, it implies that 
Jehovah had given Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba as a 
ransom for Jacob and Israel ; which could have no 
meaning after the Fall of the Holy City. Yerse 
14 is against Babylon and the Chaldeans, and verse. 
28 " will profane the sanctuary, and make Jacob a 
curse and Israel a reviling ;" showing that the curse 
and the reproach were yet to be — viz., before 586 b.c. 
In chapter 44 : 1-8 is a detailed promise of help 
and blessing, followed by an exaltation of Jehovah's 
supremacy, which was not required to be stated 
after the Restoration under Cyrus ; yet in verses 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 107 

9-20 are " the carpenter's description and the 
baker's description of making a god of wood, and 
then burning the chips in order to bake bread there- 
with, or to warm one's self at the fire thereof," which 
would have no relevancy if uttered after 586 b.c. ; 
for the Hebrews were cured of idolatry in Baby- 
lonia. 

Moreover, the conditions of pardon and restora- 
tion, unfolded in 44 : 21-45 : 25 are prophetic ; 
for the comparison of Jehovah with the gods of the 
nations is continued, even to " the wood of their 
graven images, and prayer unto a god that cannot 
save" (45 : 20, 21). This had no application to 
Cyrus, who accepted the doctrine of Two eternal 
Principles of Good and Evil, and he was not a wor- 
shipper of images. His attendance upon the sacri- 
fices in Babylonian temples disclosed his tolerance, 
or, if you prefer, his indifferentism to national re- 
ligions. He certainly granted favors to the He- 
brew exiles, and by decree provided for their re- 
turn, and the restoration of all their sacred things. 
But his favor to them did not incite him to attack 
the shrines of Babylon. Not yet did Bel fall or 
Nebo crouch to the conqueror. Not yet " shall 
they go into confusion together that are makers of 
idols" (45 : 16). But Judah was to follow Ephraim 
into exile. So it came to pass ; the Kingdom of 
the South also became captive. " All Israel, all 
the ends of the earth, shall be saved by looking 
unto God. In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel 



M)8 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

be justified, and shall glory." It was then to be 
(45 : 22-25). 

Not only is the nation's deliverer named, and the 
terms of Pardon and Restoration stated for Judah 
and Ephraim, but the supremacy of Jehovah is in- 
sisted upon for Jew and for Gentile. After how 
long an interval is not said, but it is affirmed as a 
fact to be accomplished (chapter 46 : 1), as Schra- 
der tersely renders, " Bel sinks, Nebo falls down." 
And the Revised Version, " Their idols are upon the 
beasts, and upon the cattle ; themselves are gone 
into captivity" (verses 1, 2). It sounds like pro- 
phetic ridicule : Bel and Nebo are taken prisoners. 
Orelli places this under Artaxerxes, but Herod- 
otus, P. Smith, Rawlinson, and Professor Sayce 
place it under Xerxes I., at least forty years after 
Cyrus, but probably before he entered upon the 
war against Greece. Herodotus (Book 1, chapter 
183) says : " Xerxes took away the golden image 
of Bel, and killed the priest who forbade him to 
move the statue." This, I presume, was before 
the war with Greece, and Xerxes actually seized the 
statues of Bel and of Nebo, and coined them into 
money, to aid in his campaign against Greece. 
Then, after his return, he destroyed the temple of 
Belus, so Arrian (vii. 17). Xerxes would hardly 
have done so provoking a thing before that war, lest 
it fomented worse evils than seemed pending, but 
upon his return his resentment was intensified by 
his defeat. 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 109 

It was Nebuchadnezzar, after the devastations of 
Sennacherib, that rebuilt Bel's temple and replaced 
the silver image, which he overlaid with plates of 
gold, and enriched his worship. Indeed, no son 
could do more honor to his father and show more 
love for him than Nebuchadnezzar showed to Bel 
Merodach. He entered his temple, took him by 
the hand, and thanked him for his blessings and his 
triumphs. He adored him at great cost. This 
temple continued to Xerxes L, when he pillaged 
and then destroyed the temple of Bel and of Nebo. 
Their worship, however, held on, with various 
fortune, to the third or fourth Christian century. 
(So Kawlinson's " Herodotus," 4th ed., London, 
vol. i. , pp. 660-668.) But the words of the prophet 
were fulfilled when, in about 485 B.C., a full cen- 
tury after the Fall of Jerusalem, Bel and Nebo were 
captured by the Persian king and converted to his 
own uses by being coined into money for his wars 
against the Greeks. 

Dr. Cheyne seems to regard the passage as writ- 
ten of Cyrus, and that the conqueror disappointed 
prophetic expectations when he tolerated and did 
not destroy the worship of Bel and of Nebo. But 
surely 46 : 1 and 2 may have no reference to 
Cyrus, but only to him who, like Xerxes, made 
those images to vanish from before him ! As a 
successor of Cyrus and the avenger of Jehovah 
upon idols Xerxes I. seems to have fulfilled all the 
requirements of the prophecy. It recalls the irony 



110 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

of Elijah against the dupes of Baal (1 Kings 18). 
But while he was laughing at the idolaters of Israel, 
the writer of Is. 46 : 1-2 portrays, before the event, 
the helplessness and capture of the Babylonian idols. 
He also further insists upon the supremacy and sov- 
ereignty of Jehovah (verses 3-13). It was prophecy 
not yet fulfilled. 

Those who make history of it ignore 47 : 1-7 : 
" Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin 
daughter of Babylon ; sit on the ground without a 
throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans ! I will take 
vengeance, and will accept no man as a truce maker 
between us. Get thee into darkness, daughter 
of the Chaldeans ! Two things shall come upon thee 
in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood ; 
there shall be none to save thee" (verses 9, 15). 
These predictive utterances were literally fulfilled 
at Babylon by Cyrus in 538. Belshazzar was slain, 
and his father, Nabonidus, died soon after. The 
country, like that of Israel and Judah, was bereft 
of both her kings. In little more than half a cen- 
tury Bel and Nebo were melted into current coin. 
We cannot bring these several events nearer to- 
gether. There is the discussion against idolatry, the 
word about Cyrus, about Bel and Nebo ; in 66 : 6 a 
word goes forth from the temple ; no one human 
life could span those 215 years, or from the siege of 
Sennacherib to the capture of Xerxes I. To reduce 
the prophetic portraiture which we^find in chapters 
44 to 48 to a history of occurrences is to do vio- 



BEFORE THE EXILE. Ill 

lence to the text, its time-marks, and its arguments. 
It ignores the futures in 48 : 14, 20, " Shall per- 
form His pleasure on Babylon : Go ye forth of 
Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, tell it to the 
ends of the earth V ' Surely this, when spoken, had 
not been done ? Bel Merodaeh had not fallen and 
Nebo had not prostrated himself before the God of 
gods. 

Hence, the actual fall of those false gods was a 
striking confirmation of the predictions and con- 
trasts in Is. 40-46, and of Jer. 10, 50, 51. But 
Isaiah is never more sure of the Restoration of 
Judah than was Jeremiah, who, when in prison, 
sent his servant to purchase the field, whose right 
of redemption was his, saying : " Thus saith Je- 
hovah, God of Israel : Houses, and fields, and vine- 
yards shall be possessed again in this land/' Com- 
pare Jer. 32 : 2-15 ; 36 to 44 with Is. 48 : 12-20 ; 
49 : 8-26. So the writer of these portions of Isaiah 
is corroborated by Jeremiah, and he again by Micah. 
The predictions of each are alike explicit. Compare 
Jer. 15th chapter. Also what is said of a certain 
Roman who, after the disaster at Cannse, bought a 
piece of the ground then occupied by Hannibal. 
No ; the accuracy of a fulfilment of prophecy does 
not prove it false, nor that it was written after the 
events. 

Moreover, chapter 49 informs us that the isles of 
Japheth shall see the exaltation and return of Jacob, 
even as they saw his humiliation and captivity. 



112 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

Yerses 25, 26 could scarcely be more expressive of 
deliverance : " Thus saith Jehovah, Even the cap- 
tives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the 
prey of the terrible shall be delivered ; for 1 will 
contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I 
will save thy children. And I will feed them that 
oppress thee with their own flesh ; and they shall 
be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet 
wine : and all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am 
the Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of 
Jacob." All this was in the future when the 
prophet wrote, and when Jeremiah wrote, but 
found its accomplishment in the conspiracy of the 
priests against Nabonidus for not being more devoted 
to them, and they prepared the way for Cyrus by 
conspiracy against the government, so that Belshaz- 
zar and others fell by the hand of the assassins 
among their own Babylonians, rather than by the 
sword of the Persians. This is the revised history 
of the Fall of Babylon. Her people were drunk 
with their own blood, through the slaughter of con- 
spirators, and in 538 b.c. fulfilled Is. 49 : 26. But 
46 : 1 was fulfilled by Xerxes I. rather more than 
fifty years later. 

The divorcement mentioned in chapter 50 : 1, 2 
may be better applied to the Ten Tribes already in 
Exile than to Judah, for whose transgression the 
mother was put away when the larger part of Israel 
was carried captive. But the sin of both kingdoms 
now left them without a man to deliver them ; only 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 113 

Jehovah could redeem and save them ; so the 
prophet describes Him (verses 2-11). The descrip- 
tion is grandly continued in predictive poetry through 
chapter 51, and to verse 13 of chapter 52. The 
language is very thrilling. Whether the " Awake, 
awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah" — ■ 
" Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem" — 
" Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion ; put 
on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy 
city !" a city then laid waste, as some say — whether 
these exhortations were uttered by the prophet 
through inspired vision of future unfoldings, or were 
the deliverances of a later herald, must be deter- 
mined by the light already shed upon our theme and 
by what may yet dawn. Certain it is they preced- 
ed the return from Babylon, and did not receive 
complete fulfilment under Cyrus. A diviner Light 
should yet arise for Judah. 

"We may find another time mark in 52 : 4, 5, 
" Saith the Lord God, My people went down at the 
first to sojourn in Egypt," they did not expect to 
abide there, but were kept for some centuries. 
Leaping over other centuries, " The Assyrian op- 
pressed them without cause." That is, Shalma- 
neser IY. and Sargon II. had no grievance to 
avenge for which to invade Israel and carry Sama- 
ria captive. " Now, therefore, saith Jehovah, see- 
ing my people is taken away for nought, and their 
rulers make them howl, and my name is continually 
blasphemed" (through the honors paid to Bel and 



114 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

Nebo), u Therefore my people shall know my name, 
and that I am here to speak for them ; behold, it 
is I." I have adopted the margin of the Revised 
Version in verse 6. 

The prophet here states that neither Israel nor 
Judah had wronged Assyria and Babylon, who were, 
therefore, to be punished for their offences commit- 
ted while chastizing the Hebrews for their sins 
against God. The eternal law of righteousness is 
regnant and illustrated, and also the Divine promise 
to Abraham. His heritage was Canaan, and it 
passed to Israel. They sought refuge from famine 
in Egypt, and were kept there for centuries. They 
were not captives, but detained and enslaved till 
Jehovah delivered them. Later on they were cap- 
tured by force of arms, and carried now into As- 
syria and now to Babylonia. It was not, like the 
going down to Egypt, a voluntary migration, but 
a seizure. Longer detention there would interfere 
with the Divine plan of man's Redemption ; break 
the promise to Abraham, and let the Gentile blas- 
pheme. Hence Judah was to be rescued and re- 
stored, and the oppressor chastized. The exiles 
were exhorted to " look unto Abraham, their father, 
and unto Sarah, their mother : in unity he had been 
called and blessed, and of one made many. Jehovah 
will comfort Zion, and make her deserts like Eden. 
Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiv- 
ing, and the voice of melody" (51 : 2, 3 ; 52 : 3-6). 

National deliverance is coupled with the world's 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 115 

salvation ; the prophet describes the suffering Mes- 
siah, who becomes an offering for sin, bearing the 
iniquities of others, and making intercession for the 
people (chapter 52 : 13-53 : 12). Surely, if this 
passage of a suffering Saviour for Israel is in its proper 
place here, there are connected two related subjects 
— viz. , the salvation of Israel and salvation by the 
Christ. Chapter 53 : 4-12 cannot be adequately- 
explained of any Deliverer from national exile ; for 
He is a Sufferer, and suffers the full penalty in His 
own person for the transgressions of others. He is 
not like Moses, who led forth his people from 
Egypt ; nor like David, who delivered them from 
the power of the Philistines ; nor like Hezekiah, 
who went into the Temple, and with the letter of 
Sennacherib spread before Jehovah, besought Him 
to rescue His people from the besieging army. 
Those deliverers suffered no penalty ; but this 
righteous Servant justifies and delivers many, by 
bearing their iniquities Himself, by the travail of 
His own soul (verse 11). 

Throughout these connected chapters we find a 
complex, dual subject : there are the supremacy of 
Jehovah and exposure of the absurdity of idols and 
idol worship ; the warnings and denunciations against 
sin and the threatened judgments upon it ; pre- 
dicted exile and promised restoration. The penalty 
follows transgression. Jehovah triumphs over all 
rival deities ; Bel and Nebo bow before Him. For 
he salvation of the world, a captive nation shall be 



116 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

delivered from captivity and be re-established in 
their own land. For the God of Abraham had 
promised to keep the covenant made with him for 
blessing mankind. 

Filled with these assurances of the deliverance of 
Jehovah's people — barren, desolate, and forsaken, 
like a deserted wife, as they then were — the writer 
breaks forth into the highest strains of poetry : 
" Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear. Thou 
shalt be enlarged, and shalt possess the nations. As 
the Flood of Noah abated, and the earth was re- 
newed, so Jehovah will renew His promises to His 
people. His covenant of peace, of which the en- 
during mountains were witness, should not be 
broken, but His kindness should return to them, 
and God would gather them with great mercies" 
(54 : 1-10). Then another prophetic hymn was fol- 
lowed by a personal invitation to " Every one that 
thirsteth to come to the waters ; to come freely, 
without money, and partake of wine and milk with- 
out cost. For Jehovah, God of Israel, would glorify 
them" (55 : 1-5). But this was never true of the 
national restoration ; that was at great cost to Per- 
sian princes and to the returned Hebrews. The 
prophet therefore looked forward to the preaching 
of the Messiah. (Compare St. Matt. 11 : 28-30.) 

In Isaiah 55 : 6-13 the subjective conditions, 
prayer, penitence, righteousness, are described and 
enjoined. Purity and loyalty are required of men, 
because God is highly exalted above all the earth. 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 117 

Even the natural world testified to His supremacy, 
and that He would cause fir-trees and myrtle-trees 
to take the place of .thorns and briers, as an ever- 
lasting sign of His faithfulness. The redemption 
of His people would be accompanied by the glad 
acclaim of mountains and hills, and the trees of the 
field would clap their hands. This, of course, is 
poetry, but it is poetry inspired. It is Jehovah 
speaking by His prophet. Why that prophet is not 
the same as he who wrote and sung the first five 
chapters of Isaiah is not discoverable from the text. 
The style, tone, and verbal expressions are much 
alike ; only difference of subject seems to differ- 
entiate the writer. It is at least very probable that 
both of these sections were written before the 
Exile to Babylon. Compare chapters 10 and 11. 
Jerusalem is threatened (10 : 11), yet the dispersed 
of Judah will be gathered from the four corners of 
the earth (11 : 12). 

If one should collate passages from the last twenty- 
seven chapters, and compare them with their parallels 
in the first forty chapters of Isaiah, and with Jere- 
miah, the absurdity of relegating the last twenty- 
seven chapters to a period after these two prophets 
would be manifest. Read carefully Jer. 13-15 
chapters, where we find similar matter to that of 
Isaiah, " Line upon line, and precept upon pre- 
cept." Such similarity does not indicate that the 
Second Isaiah was after the First, nor after Jere- 
miah. And some time marks suggest that he may 



118 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

have been between them — e.g. Is. 66 : 6, where 
the " Voice of the temple, with the tumult of the 
city, and the recompense upon Jehovah's enemies," 
point to Sennacherib's letter which Hezekiah then 
spread before the Lord (chapter 37 : 14-20). At no 
other time in that era, from 721-586 B.C., is the three- 
fold voice to be heard. Not till this nineteenth cen- 
tury was there any serious doubt of its date. The 
section was translated into the Septuagint without 
question, was collated by Origen in the third cen- 
tury, and by Jerome in the fourth, without suspi- 
cion that those twenty-seven chapters were not 
prophecy as truly as the first forty chapters, as truly 
as the predictions of Jeremiah are prophecy. They 
are prophetic exhortations, warnings, songs, fore- 
seeings, not written after the events. 

The exhortation of chapter 55 is continued in 56 
and in 57, while in 58 it is only more urgent : " Cry 
aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, 
and declare unto My people their transgression, and 
to the house of Jacob their sins." It proceeds with 
conditional promises of pending blessings, yet as 
though Judah still observed her feasts and fasts in 
Jerusalem (verse 2). And the figure of " lifting 
up the voice like a trumpet," which was strikingly 
fitting in a city, or before a ]arge assembly, has no 
meaning for a people scattered, captured, and ex- 
iled throughout the Assyrian empire. So of chap- 
ter 59 : " Will you shorten Jehovah's hand and dull 
His ear, so that He can neither hear nor save ? Is 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 119 

truth so fallen in our streets, and departed from 
us, that we are become a prey, and the righteous 
stand afar off, while our sins testify against us 
(verses 12, 14, 15) ? Indeed, the whole chapter is 
an argument that Jerusalem yet stands, but is in 
peril through transgression ; that a redeemer shall 
come to Zion, and to the penitent in Jacob, saith 
Jehovah" (verse 20). 

Moreover, the word Zion used of the Temple, 
and Jacob, used for Canaan, imply that the people 
were then at home and their beautiful house not 
then destroyed. Thus verses 16--19 have a stronger 
emphasis — " Oh, that one may interpose for us, that 
the Divine Arm may bring us salvation instead of 
vengeance ; then shall we of the west fear Jehovah, 
and His glory shall be seen from the rising of the 
sun. A redeemer shall come to Zion, and the 
Divine Spirit shall be upon them, and His words 
shall be in their mouth, and shall not depart out of 
their mouth, nor out of the mouth of their seed's 
seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and for ever" 
(verse 21). All this reads as much like conditional 
prophecy before its accomplishment as anything 
we find from Samuel to Malachi. Compare Mai. 
2 : 17-3 : 7. The frequent iterations of condi- 
tional blessings and of penalties are as natural in the 
last section as in the first section of Isaiah. He 
cannot be changed into an historian and narrator of 
accomplished facts. 

Nor can we explain the " Arise, shine ; for thy 



120 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

light is come" of Cyrus, in 60 : 1, since the whole 
account of the wonders mentioned leads up to verse 
22, " 1, Jehovah, will hasten it in its time." But 
it was a conditional promise. The nations had not 
come to that light, nor their kings to the brightness 
of its rising. Nor had the wealth of the nations, 
the frankincense from Sheba, the flocks of Kedar, 
and the rams of Nebaioth yet glorified the house of 
the Lord at Jerusalem. From her predicted judg- 
ments after the capture of Samaria the people had 
not became righteous ; though righteousness con- 
ditioned their possession of the land forever. But 
not yet had this promise been realized ; not yet had 
Jehovah hastened its advent. 

In due course, however, Nebuchadnezzar ac- 
knowledged the Most High God as supreme in 
heaven and in earth ; Darius and Artaxerxes pro- 
claimed Him ; while Xerxes I. carried off Bel and 
Nebo from Babylon, and destroyed the great temple 
there. Thenceforth on the Euphrates, as for more 
than a century on the Jordan, no remonstrances 
were needed against graven images. Nor would a 
prophet who could write like the author of Is. 
40-66 stultify himself by denouncing a forsaken 
idolatry. The inference, therefore, must be that 
when he wrote idolatry was a crying sin in Judsea. 
It was before its extirpation by capture and by exile. 

In chapter 61 : 1-10 the " Anointed One was 
promised to preach glad tidings to the poor, to bind 
up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 121 

captives, the opening of prison doors, the acceptable 
year of Jehovah, and His day of vengeance ; also to 
comfort the mourners, meeting them in Zion, and 
changing their heaviness into joy and rejoicing : 
they should become the planted of the Lord, and 
He glorified in them. Former wastes were to be 
repaired, new priests were to be named, the covenant 
was to be renewed, and national renown secured." 
And to emphasize the assurance of all this the 
Spirit of the Lord descends upon the preacher to 
encourage devout seekers after Him. For reproach 
and confusion they shall repossess their lands and 
rejoice in their portion. As a bride and bride- 
groom, so should they adorn themselves and become 
a praise before all nations. 

This is strongly accentuated to the penitent : 
u For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
Jerusalem's I will not rest, until her righteousness 
go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp 
that burnetii. . . And thou shalt be called by a 
new name — viz., Beulah : for Jehovah delighteth 
in thee, and thy land shall be married. . . Thou 
shalt be a crown of beauty and a royal diadem in 
the hand of the Lord thy God" (62 : 1-5). These 
promises of glory and blessedness are continued 
throughout the chapter. It describes the watchman 
of Jehovah, and His sworn pledge to Jerusalem : 
her sanctuary shall be honored by those who gath- 
ered and garnered her people's harvests. So it 
came to pass under Persian kings : " Say ye to the 
6 



122 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh ; 
behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense 
before him." This cannot be said of Cyras. Yet 
the holy people, " the redeemed of the Lord, shall 
be called, sought out, a city not forsaken" (verses 
6-12). 

As did other prophets, as did oar Lord, the writer 
here blends and connects the deliverer of Israel 
from captivity with the Redeemer of the world, 
who should tread the winepress alone for its salva- 
tion ; it was the grand symbolization of Redemp- 
tion. To call it a rhetorical statement of facts may 
leave us its poetry, but poetry without meaning. 
As mere history, its point and essence evaporate. 
The traveller from Edom, with crimsoned garments, 
described in chapter 63, is far more than a glori- 
ously apparelled prince : " He is strong, He is right- 
eous, mighty to save : His garments are sprinkled 
with lifeblood. He looked, and there was none to 
help ; therefore His arm brought salvation ; He 
trode down the peoples in anger, made them drunk 
in his fury, and poured out their lifeblood on 
the earth" (verses 1-6). Even if this can be said 
of Cyrus, the rest of the chapter cannot be so 
applied — viz., the praises of Jehovah and His mer- 
cies ; the rebellion of the people and their affliction ; 
the Angel of his presence who saved them, the love 
and pity that redeemed Israel ; that bare them, and 
carried them all the days of old ; the reference to 
Moses and his works, dividing the water and lead- 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 123 

ing his people through the depths ; the prayer for 
the return of the Tribes, so passionately implored 
in verse 17 — all this is without meaning as applied 
to Cyrus, and it was not fulfilled in the Restoration 
under him. Nor is there any proper comparison 
between him and Moses in verse 11. 

With verse 18, and continuing to the end of chap- 
ter 64, is a different treatment of a similar theme. 
The holy people are said to have possessed their 
heritage but a little while, when their adversaries 
trode down the sanctuary, and they became as 
though God never bare rule over them, and they 
were not called by His name. These conditions did 
not exist under the Persian kings, unless applicable 
to the evils wrought by San ballet and Tobiah, exag- 
gerated reports of which may have come to some 
prophet of the Exile ; and hence this passionate ap- 
peal to Jehovah : Oh, that He would rend the 
heavens, let the mountains burn, that He would 
descend as upon Sinai, and make the nations tremble 
at His presence ! The language is too strong to 
be spoken of relief from any local distress in Judaea 
during the Persian supremacy. It must belong to 
the era just before the destruction by Babylon, or 
look forward to the troubles under Antiochus £pi- 
phanes, or under Titus and the Romans. And the 
writer proceeds with historic allusions to God's ter- 
ribleness, that He requires loyalty, recognizing none 
besides Him ; how He meeteth the doer of right- 
eousness ; how He was wroth against sinners ; how 



124 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

He would pardon their iniquities, and restore their 
beautiful house, then represented as desolate and 
burned with fire. The last point may be a pro- 
phetic time mark, showing it was uttered before 
586 b.c. It certainly was not said of accomplished 
promises to gather captives already returned ! 
Yerses 10 and 11 prove that. 

Must it not be considered in relation with the 
idolatry denounced in chapter 44 ? " Be not wroth 
very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for 
ever. Thou art our Father" (64 : 8, 9). bom- 
pare 44 : 21-24. Yet as sure as that the Hebrew 
exiles did not worship graven images in Babylon, 
of which Daniel and his friends are examples, so 
sure the temple was not burned nor Jerusalem a 
desolation when 44 : 6-20 was written. Indeed, 
I prefer to regard chapter 64 as a work of Daniel, 
related to Dan. 9 : 1-19, which has been misplaced 
by some copyist of the time of Ezra, and so fitted in 
where we find it, than to relegate the second grand 
division of Isaiah to a period after the destruction of 
city and temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Or we may 
consider it a prayer of Ezekiel, following Ezek. 39 : 
29, which has been misplaced ; or the effusion of 
some other prophet before the Restoration, rather 
than allow it to drag its now connected chapters to 
a time when they lose their meaning. It was cer- 
tainly written before Cyrus, and so is not history. 
Yet, as is tersely said, " A word of history is worth 
a mountain of theory' '-—a rule to be applied to the 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 125 

exposition of prophecy. But some are so misled by 
a theory, now touching prophecy, now legislation, 
now the development of theology in Israel, and 
now to make history of a Second Isaiah, that they 
ignore contemporary facts and records which illus- 
trate this period of the Hebrews, and so they can- 
not interpret Hebrew prophecy aright. 

However my suggestion may be regarded by 
those competent to judge, I am free to confess that 
Is. 64 seems to be a prayer prophecy, uttered when 
Jndah was in Exile and her temple in ruins ; ut- 
tered before her return and before the restoration 
of Zion. It is not an interpolation for a purpose, 
but a reverent misplacement of a passage, when 
such misplacement was easy. But it was before 
Cyrus that Jehovah was invoked to rend the heavens, 
shake the mountains, and make His name terrible 
to the nations, even as He appeared at Sinai (64 : 
1,2). 

My suggestion, therefore, connects 63 : 17 with 
65 : 1. Thus the related passages of a Suffering 
Messiah who delivers Israel and redeems the world, 
are linked to that which makes Him inquired after 
by those who sought Him not ; first by the Persians 
and later by the Greeks. They fit well together. 
Then the writer returns to treat of Judah, when her 
people wrought abomination and were rebellious : 
sacrificing in gardens, burning incense upon bricks, 
eating swine's fiesh and broth of abominable things ; 
they were idolaters, yet conspicuous for their self- 



126 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

righteousness. " I will recompense into their 
bosom, saith Jehovah, them that have burned in- 
cense upon the mountains, and blasphemed, or de- 
fied me upon the hills : 1 will measure their work 
into their bosom" (verses 2-7). Yet because of 
the loyal and faithful among them, a seed of J acob 
and of Judah shall inherit the good land promised 
to their fathers. Sharon and Achor shall pasture 
their flocks ; but they who follow Fortune and 
Destiny as gods shall fall by the sword ; because 
when the Lord called they would not regard it 
(65 : 8-12). 

It suggests what St. Paul says of the rejection of 
the Jew and the calling of the Gentile, that Israel 
may be saved. The old leaven of truth remaining 
among them shall lead to their rehabilitation. God 
will create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a 
joy; He will rejoice in them. They shall reap 
the fruit of their labors and dwell in their own 
houses. Jehovah will anticipate their needs, and 
hear before they call. Even the brute creation shall 
be blessed : the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the 
ox, shall be companions. The serpent shall not hurt, 
none shall destroy in the holy mountain, saith the 
Lord (65 : 13-25). For,, behold, " I create new 
heavens and a new earth." Historically, this has 
not been fulfilled. It seems to anticipate the tri- 
umph of the principles unfolded in the Sermon on 
the Mount. But even then children may die, and 
old men before reaching a century of years. The 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 127 

new creation, however, is shown to be a conditional 
renovation for Jerusalem and her people, but it 
was a condition which they never realized, because 
of their disobedience. 

Chapter 66 begins to correct the material pros- 
perity which was erroneously expected from the 
passage commencing at verse 17 of chapter 65. 
The new dispensation to be introduced by Him 
whose throne is heaven, and whose footstool the 
earth, will need no temple like that which Solomon 
built ; for the Most High dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands ; neither is worshipped as though 
He needed anything (Acts 17 : 24, 25); what sort 
of house will ye build for Him ? and where shall 
He be located ? His own hand hath made all 
things, saith Jehovah. Then the new creation is 
described as the Lord dwelling in the heart of a 
poor and contrite man, who trembles at His word, 
by anxiety to obey it. Thus our Lord in St. John 
4 : 24, u God is a Spirit ; and they that worship 
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 
He needs no temple of mechanical design and 
workmanship, but is content to abide in the hearts 
of His faithful people. 

This new and spiritual teaching is then illustrated 
by the prophet's comparison of it with the former 
system wherein material acts were of chief impor- 
tance ; but under the new system, the cruelty of 
killing an ox is likened to the slaying of a man ; 
the sacrificing a lamb to breaking the neck of a 



128 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

dog ; the offering an oblation was defilement like 
offering swine's blood : even to burn incense was 
materialism like idolatry. Yet this people " choose 
their own methods, and their soul delighteth in 
their abominations." They do not accept what I 
have offered them. si I also will choose their de- 
lusions, and will bring their fears upon them ; be- 
cause when I called none did answer ; when I 
spake they did not hear ; but they did that which 
was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I de- 
lighted not. " The reader will now see how utterly 
different is this part of the prophet's discourse from 
much that has preceded it. He has leaped beyond 
the Jerusalem temple, beyond Judsea, to have his 
Lord found of them who sought Him not. The 
reference is back to chapter 65, where Persians and 
Greeks and other Gentiles — nations not called by 
the Divine name — now inquire for Jehovah and 
the new covenant which He has made with man. 
This new dispensation has nothing to do with 
Cyrus, nor with anything he did, or failed to do, 
for Israel, Israel the called and the rejected. 

Another matter is connected with it for those who 
hear the Lord's word : " Your brethren that hate$ 
you, that cast you out for My name's sake, have 
said, Let Jehovah be glorified, that we may see 
your joy ; but they shall be ashamed." We, your 
brethren of Ephraim, have seen Baal fall in Sama- 
ria ; let us see your joy. No, you shall be ashamed ! 
What, says the prophet, do you not remember 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 129 

the " voice of tumult from the city," when Sen- 
nacherib besieged it with his 200,000 men, and 
the " voice of prayer from the temple," when 
Hezekiah spread his blasphemous letter before Je- 
hovah, and the voice which told that He would be 
avenged upon His enemies and deliver His peo- 
ple ? Even before they suffered from the siege 
they were delivered, Not an arrow was shot at 
them, not a drop of their blood was shed before 
deliverance came to Jerusalem. The blatant boast- 
ers heard a rumor and escaped as fast as possible. 
They were utterly discomfited. Before the pain 
of travail, because of the siege, came upon the city 
the siege was raised, and the invaders tied away. 
Jerusalem rejoiced, and all that loved her also re- 
joiced. Baal had fallen, but Jehovah had tri- 
umphed. Those of Ephraim who saw it were 
ashamed, but Judah rejoiced. 

This, I suggest, may be the exposition of 66 : 
6-10. It meets all the points named in the text. 
Every element is verified, every requirement an- 
swered ; even the figurative comparison is accounted 
for in each particular. The conditional element 
does not here exist. When the prophet wrote it 
was recent history, and it is a time mark of that 
fact. Of no other epoch is it applicable ; not to 
Nebuchadnezzar, and he suffered no defeat ; not to 
any later time of trouble in Jerusalem, or of the 
rebuilding of Zion. All the conditions find their 
verification when the Assyrian sent his defiant mes- 
6* 



130 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

sage to King Hezekiah, and lie spread it before the 
Lord in the temple. Compare Nebuchadnezzar 
before Bel Merodach. Jehovah triumphed, for the 
cause was really His. And that wonderful deliv- 
erance, which the writer compares to an easy ac- 
couchement of the daughter of Zion, made a deep 
impression upon the people. It was the talk of the 
city. ^ 

With this grand event in mind the prophet gives 
assurance of the final deliverance of Judah from 
all her foes, and from all her sins. Her peace shall 
be like a river, and all her wants shall be satisfied. 
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will Je- 
hovah comfort her, and she shall be comforted in 
Jerusalem (fi6 : 10-14). Sennacherib had defied 
the Lord ; had compared the gods of even con- 
quered nations to Him. Wherefore Tarshish, Pul, 
Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the isles afar off should 
hear of the fame and glory of Jehovah in rescuing 
His people. He would come with fire and sword, 
with chariots like a whirlwind, having great indig- 
nation against His enemies, and the slain of the 
Lord shall be many. Men must sanctify them- 
selves and purify themselves from all idolatry, from 
eating swine's flesh and the mouse as a religious 
act, and offer a pure offering in the holy mountain 
Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, even as Israel bring their 
offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. 
And of the Gentiles will He take for priests and 
for Levites. But when ? Clearly, as in verse 22, 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 131 

when Jehovah makes the new heavens and the new 
earth — i.e., when He establishes the new system of 
a more spiritual religion ; not when He has restored 
the Hebrews from captivity. 

The writer, like St. Paul, leaps from theme to 
theme. Now he speaks of deliverance from the 
Assyrian, now of Jehovah in Jerusalem being 
mightier than Baal in Samaria, and of the comfort 
He gives to His people ; then he will have Jehovah 
glorified among the Gentiles, and they shall wor- 
ship Him with pure offerings on Mount Zion — yea, 
the time comet h when He will take of them to be 
His priests and Levites. In verse 23 he indicates 
how and when the Gentiles — yea, all flesh, shall 
worship Him ; and they shall see the carcasses of the 
transgressors against Him (verse 24). So it came 
to pass. 

The fulfilment of this prophecy was realized in 
part after the return from Exile. Cyrus, Darius, 
Artaxerxes, even Alexander the Great, all did honor 
to the God of the Hebrews. They restored their 
sacred things which had been captured, and their 
national privileges which had been forfeited. They 
made provision for rebuilding the temple and the 
resumption of its sacrifices, " that they may offer 
sacrifices of sweet savor unto the God of heaven, 
and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons." 
(See Ezra 6 : 1-12 ; 1 : 1-11.) Thus Jehovah was 
honored by Cyras and by Darius. After that Ar- 
taxerxes ordered to teach those who knew not the 



132 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

laws of God (Ezra 7 : 25). How Alexander hon- 
ored Him is stated in Josephus and briefly utilized 
in " Bible Growth and Religion," pp. 232, 233. 
How the opposition of Sanballet and Tobiah, men- 
tioned in Neh. 2 : 10, was frustrated, we learn in 
the first part of that chapter. It, in fact, empha- 
sizes the fostering care of three Persian kings, who, 
by decree and by deputy, fulfilled Is. 66 : 19 and 
23. The reader should consult the references. 

As in the destruction wrought by Assyrian, Baby- 
lonian, and Persian armies, all the threats of verses 
15 and 16 were fulfilled, so in the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem and the restoration of the temple and its 
sacrifices under Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, all 
the nursing care promised in verses 10-14 found ac- 
complishment. Even the " all flesh" of verse 23 
was largely realized by the injunction of Darius, to 
i( pray for the life of the king, and of his sons" in 
the daily service of the temple (Ezra 6 : 10). For 
then Darius represented the civilized world, except 
Greece ; Rome had not yet become a power ; and 
the successor of Cambyses as King of the Medes and 
Persians was also King of Babylonia and Assyria, 
of Syria and Judaea, of Egypt also, governing it by 
deputy. 

Xerxes I. succeeded him, and fulfilled Isaiah 
46 : 1, for he plundered the temple of Bel and other 
shrines at Babylon, and carried off their images, 
which he probably melted into money. They bowed 
and crouched before him in the coinage. Orelli 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 133 

says Artaxerxes carried off Bel and Nebo ; but ac- 
cording to Herodotus, who is sustained by Rawlin- 
son, P. Smith, and later still by Professor Sayce, 
this was done by Xerxes I. about 485 B.C., when 
making his vast preparations for the war against 
Greece. Then he seized the treasures of Babylon, 
with their gods of gold and shrines of silver. It 
was a full century after the fall of Jerusalem. It 
is another authentication of prophecy. But it was 
done as a punishment upon a people who often re- 
belled against the Persian rule, and whose priests 
were made to suffer for their part in conspiring 
against the government and inviting Cyrus to be- 
come their chief. It was the priests of Babylon 
who compassed the overthrow of Nabonidus. They 
had excited the people against him ; they rebelled 
against the successors of Cyrus, and now Xerxes 
despoiled their temples, and left their priests with- 
out a sanctuary. 

Thus the prophecy was fulfilled, even if a thor- 
ough clearance of idolatry from the country was not 
effected. For the Persians were not in the habit of 
interfering with the religion of subject peoples, un- 
less their priests were suspected of fomenting dis- 
cord, as in Babylon and in Egypt. With the Jews 
there was no religious opposition to the Persians, 
and their theology was singularly alike. Chapter 
66 : 23 is also fulfilled, as is 19 : 19, by the erec- 
tion of a temple like that at Jerusalem in Egypt. 
It was within the sanctuary of old Bubastis, where 



134 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH 

Onias was permitted by the king to set up an altar 
to Jehovah, and there daily to celebrate a worship 
only a little less elaborate than that in the temple 
of Jerusalem. This continued in that old Egyp- 
tian nome Heliopolis, from 170 b.c. to 73 a.d., 
when it was destroyed by the Romans. See " Bible 
Growth and Keligion," pp. 205, 233, 254, and 
Josephus ad loo. In the slaughter at Babylon by 
the conspiracy against Nabonidus, and the several 
punishments inflicted upon her for later rebellions, 
not to go as late as the conquest of Alexander, there 
was at least a measurable fulfilment of Is. 66 : 24. 
- Wherefore, to relegate this whole division of t}ie 
work to a period which makes it history, and not 
prophecy, is a serious perversion of the text, a part 
of which refers to 701 b.c, and a part to Cyrus, a 
part to Darius in 519, his second year (Ezra 4 : 24), 
-and a part to Xerxes in 485, and a part to Arta- 
xerxes in his twentieth year, or about 445 b.c. As 
history it covers a period of 256 years ; and, if 
from an unknown author, could not then have been 
admitted to a place with the earlier chapters of 
Isaiah. Its admission there certifies to its early 
-writing. 

I have shown the date of the fall of Bel and 
JSebo, and that no such writer as was the accom- 
plished author of chapters 40-66 could write the 
denunciations against graven images contained in 
chapters 40, 44, and other passages after 586 b.c. 
I have conceded that 63 : 18-64 : 12 may be anun- 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 135 

explained misplacement of a later prophet. The 
comparison of Jehovah with graven images, and 
what is said of Bel and Nebo, of nursing kings for 
Judah, of Cyrus and the slain of the Lord, all this 
was j ears before the Restoration, before Darius re- 
quested prayers in Jerusalem "for the life of the 
king, and of his sons," and before Artaxerxes en- 
joined upon Nehemiah to teach the ignorant the 
laws of God in that land. The prophetic portions 
were probably written soon after the invasion by 
Sennacherib, which caused a tumult in the city, 
also the prayer of Hezekiah in the temple, and the 
avenging of Jehovah upon the Assyrians suggested 
in 66 : 6 ; 37 : 1-35. It surely could not have 
been written when the temple lay in ruins. Nor 
could the remonstrances against idols have been 
written after they had been destroyed in Babylon, 
and had long ceased in Judaea. Making it history 
creates insuperable difficulties, which disappear 
when regarded as prophecy. To put the writing, of 
it soon after 700 b.c. makes it a wonderful com- 
position of an inspired prophet, while to place it 
about 485 or 445 b.c. makes it a marvellous rhap- 
sody, without coherence or possible explanation, of 
which no theory of a " conditional element" per- 
vading it is an approximate solution. 

To say that the passages describing a suffering 
Messiah and the Messiah regnant and triumphant 
were fulfilled before 444 b.c. is hardly paying " a 
decent respect to the opinions of mankind." If 



136 THE WRITER OP ISAIAH 

the writer were not Isaiah of Jerusalem, he must 
have nourished in the latter part of that era, being 
a junior companion prophet, and, like him, possess- 
ing all kinds of talent and all beauties of discourse, 
treating of Redemption Promised, of Redemp- 
tive Accompaniments, and of Redemption in its 
realization. 

Very early all that now forms the Book of Isaiah 
was closely connected in ms. It was enrolled as 
canonical before the close of the prophetic era, 
which proves as sure as dawn precedes the day its 
ancient authentication. Divine Inspiration is evi- 
dent all through the Book, and elucidates its con- 
tents — the vision in chapter 6 and 66 : 6. The 
Divine voice attests the later as well as the earlier 
chapters, and the later as well as the earliest Biblical 
Books. It chose Abraham rather than any other 
Semite ; it chose Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob 
rather than Esau, and the tribe of Judah as the line 
whence the Messiah should descend, rather than 
Jacob's first-born. And so Inspired Prophecy and 
Miraculous Events were required for the grand ac- 
complishment of those ancient choosings. The sub- 
ject really is not Israel, nor Cyrus, not Exile, or 
return from it, but Preparation for the Redemp- 
tion of the world; Hebrew election and Gentile 
calling, temple sacrifices and prophetic deliverances 
being necessary elements in the great preparation 
of two thousand years. See this wrought out in 
ii Bible Growth and Religion." 



BEFORE THE EXILE. 137 

My plan did not include a notice of those writers 
who differ from me, which confuses the ordinary 
reader, and is not needed by the learned. Yet I 
must mention Canon Driver, who in his " Life and 
Times of Isaiah, " as I understand him, holds that 
those grand chapters, 40-66, relate to One who was 
a Deliverer of Israel from captivity, and would not 
allow the Babylonians to restrain them from re- 
turning to Palestine. They shall return in grand 
processions, and Zion shall be rebuilt ! But is not 
that rather small work for which to invoke Him 
who inhabiteth Eternity, calling to the Isles and the 
nations afar off to behold His wonders ? Erelong 
those Babylonians ceased to be a nation, and the Per- 
sians possessed their lands. Never could the isles 
of the Mediterranean Sea nor the distant nations 
hear the prophet east of the Euphrates ! Even 
when scattered through the empire before Babylon 
fell, no large assembly of Hebrews could be gath- 
ered into one place where the prophet might ad- 
dress them ; and it were useless for him to lift up 
liis voice or cry unto widely scattered captives ! 
Of course, the prophecy is in poetic style, but its 
language has the ordinary meaning. Applied to 
residents in the cities of Judaea before the Exile, it 
is easily understood ; but to assign it to a time when 
Judah was scattered over the empire obscures the 
sense. The learned canon overlooks this. 

Nor does he explain chapter 53 according to the 
demands of the text. It confessedly is not applic- 



138 THE WRITER OF ISAIAH. 

able to any one, except the rejected and crucified 
Christ. For Jehovah did not lay our iniquity on 
Cyrus ; nor was he oppressed and dumb under it, 
like a sheep in the hands of her shearers. He was 
not taken away by oppression and an unjust judg- 
ment, nor cut off prematurely, nor stricken for 
Israel. Not for Cyrus did they make a grave with 
the wicked, and with the rich in his death. Nor 
did the Lord bruise him and put him to grief ; nor 
was he ever made a sin-offering for the people. 
The whole chapter is singularly inapplicable to 
Cyrus. Head it in the Revised Version. 

Of Isaiah 61, St. Luke tells us that our Lord ap- 
plied the first verses to Himself, thus : " To-day 
hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears" (St. 
Luke 4 : 16-23, Revised Version). The authority 
is supreme and absolute, that it could not have been 
fulfilled in the time of Cyrus. Our Lord forecloses 
all doubt as to its meaning and application. I pre- 
sume Canon Driver will acknowledge its force and 
obligation. 



III. 



THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD APPLIED TO 
THE BIBLE. 

It is only in illustration of our subject to say that 
we regard the foregoing pages as the outcome of 
the findings, if not in strict logical sequence of fol- 
lowing the scientific method in such themes. For 
science has been well defined to be the knowledge 
of the laws which govern phenomena. It is not 
the law nor the phenomena, but the knowledge of 
those laws which govern the manifestations of na- 
ture. Hence science is knowledge, and not agnos- 
ticism. It is what men have learned and know 
touching this or the other matter. Hence it is the 
product of experience and of experiment. Such 
science we may apply to Revelation and to Biblical 
exegesis, the Bible being received upon the testi- 
mony of disinterested and truthful men. Bible 
religion began anew with Abraham, who had no 
motive to deceive his child. 

1. All true history is the record of what others 
or we ourselves have done ; the transcript of human 
phenomena and achievements ; the knowledge of 



140 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

what has been or is being done. Some one has 
thought, has spoken, has put the word into deed ; 
and the record and sequence of that is science in 
history, in the Bible, in religion. It is not a jum- 
ble nor an aggregate, but sequence in nature, in 
man, in the revelations and unfoldings of Deity. 

There is no such thing as science in nature, for 
nature does not know, it simply is. But our knowl- 
edge of the laws and manifestations of nature is 
scientific. Natural science is our knowledge of the 
laws which govern nature, or its manifestations. 
But science cannot affirm or deny the alleged dream 
of Alexander at Dium, nor the crossing of the Ru- 
bicon by Caesar, nor the signing of the Declaration 
of Independence by our fathers. Still our knowl- 
edge of history may suggest similar occurrences ; 
as that of the Barons of England obtaining Magna 
Oharta from King John, the invasion of Italy by 
Hannibal, and the dream of Philip of Macedon. 
Thus our knowledge enables us to probe and test 
the evidence upon which a certain dream rests, or 
a plunge was made, or a treaty was signed. 

2. With a priori, or a posteriori probabilities our 
science has little to do, except so far as our knowl- 
edge is concerned. Thus 2 X 2 == 4 is perhaps 
eternally true, and never will be 3 or 5. Also that 
water below 32° freezes on our planet. Observa- 
tion and testimony certify to this, and history tells 
us it has been so since the beginning of human 
records or of geologic time. Our a priori notions 



APPLIED TQ THE BIBLE. 141 

are corrected by experiences. Men and women of 
the same temperament and characteristics are not 
always the most happy in wedlock. The greatest 
of our race have left rather feeble successors : Peri- 
cles, Alexander, Csesar, Cicero, Shakespeare, Mil- 
ton, Goethe, Cromwell, Washington, Napoleon, 
Gibbon, Hume, Johnson, Carlyle, etc. Even in 
Bible story, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and other 
prophets, John Baptist, St. John and St. Paul, left 
no heirs of mark or distinguished merit. Nor will 
our expectations be realized if we look for the fin- 
est potatoes, the choicest cabbages, and the fairest 
flowers from seeds of the largest and most per- 
fect of their several kinds. Here experience — i.e.] 
science tells us that by the law of reversion the 
very finest seeds usually produce the poorest crops 
in return. Nature exhausts herself, and so teaches 
us to correct our otherwise reasonable expectations. 
The farmer and gardener learn from their elders. 

So of natural science : Kepler's law of the plan- 
etary distances, Newton's law of the force of attrac- 
tion, with sundry calculation tables, come to our 
knowledge and to the mass of mankind upon the 
testimony of others. We know them only at second 
hand. Learned professors and their humblest 
scholars depend upon lists and classifications which 
others had made for them. They have not proved 
them. Libraries of large volumes may be filled 
with the names of plants, insects, birds, fishes, mam- 
mals, including man ; of geological strata and their 



142 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

contents, which no late scientist has proved for him- 
self or knows of except upon the testimony of 
others. There are myriads of books in the various 
departments of knowledge which one has not exam- 
ined, who accepts their results upon trust, that mir- 
acle of human confidence. Even the reports of re- 
cent observers and explorers in the flora and fauna 
of our world are read by few. Agnostics should be 
indeed modest, for they know but little, and take 
most of that little upon trust in the truth of what is 
told them. The Christian goes perhaps a step 
farther, but carefully sifts all testimony touching the 
facts of revelation and the so-called doctrines of re- 
ligion. And why not ? Is not the testimony to 
the truth of Holy Scripture as credible and trust- 
worthy as that of Cuvier or Lyell, of Audubon or 
Linnaeus, of Darwin or Dawson ? In the world of 
nature, as of revelation, man ever depends upon the 
testimony of man. So it is time to have done with 
lauding the certainties of science above the so-called 
guesses of Revelation. Both rest on testimony. 
And the testimony of Christians is no more fanati- 
cal than that of scientists. Anaxagoras and Aris- 
totle were as fanatical as St. James and St. Mark. 

3. However poor a handling the clergy make of 
certain questions related to theology, their training 
for centuries was such as to fit them to be the lead- 
ers and formers of society, of the literature and of 
the higher life of the nations. Not only did they 
tame savage men into reason and culture, they also 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 143 

converted and transformed them ; tl.ey multiplied 
copies of the ancient writings and of Holy Scripture, 
and with the dawn of modern life they supplied the 
people with an open Bible in Germany, England, 
France, and later on the world over. Wickliffe, 
Tyndale, and other translators and revisers of the 
Bible formed the language of England and America. 

Indeed, the Church's methods in her search after 
truth have long been the same as those pursued in 
our State courts, but without a party concerned to 
suppress important facts. Our theological semina- 
ries worthy of the name seek for the facts and 
origins of their ecclesiastical and dogmatic systems. 
Unlike colleges which teach Greek, Roman, and 
other ancient literatures as they lind them in cur- 
rent texts, the theologian is taught and required to 
sift his text and the authority for it, as well as its 
interpretation. This did Lightfoot, Westcott, Elli- 
cott, Cheyne, etc., in England ; Turner, Briggs, 
Green, Harper in America ; and numbers whom 
every scholar knows on the European continent. 
They seek for the right text to interpret as well as 
for the right principles of interpretation. 

But judging from recent utterances on both sides 
the ocean, one might suppose that the Christian 
Church had not ever been the teacher of good ethics, 
culture, and criticism ; that she had not led in the 
ways of learning and of civilization. She founded 
the colleges of the old world, and also many of our 
land — Harvard, Yale, Columbia, with many of re- 



144 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

cent date, whose chairs she has filled with Christian 
scholars. From Bede to Abelard and the two 
Bacons, Roger and Sir Francis, the path is strewn 
with the works of Christian writers — of Csedmon 
and Lanfranc, Anselm and Chancer, Gower, Frois- 
sart and Mandeville, Sir T. More and William 
Tyndale. Even Spenser, Shakespeare, and Rare 
Ben Jonson received inspiration from the literature 
of the Church. She gave lawyers to the State and 
judges to the bench ; she humbled Henry IY., of 
Germany, and Frederick, the Redbeard ; she soft- 
ened the asperity of barons, incited to chivalry and 
the Crusades, conquered the barbarians who tram- 
pled down the old civilization ; and when Constanti- 
nople fell to the Turks she received and provided 
for her exiled scholars. The New World was 
peopled by her colonists, who copied her attain- 
ments in life and in arts, as well as in science and 
religion. But she does not so often talk about what 
she has done as of what remains to be done. 

Thus she illustrates what Bishop Thompson tersely 
says in his Lectures : " The beast eats the phenom- 
ena, or drinks it, and thinks no more about it." 
So she follows the scientific way of seeking truth, 
she absorbs it, inculcates it upon others, but says 
little about it. Even of the Sermon on the Mount 
she inquires what and where it is before she ex- 
pounds it. So of this or that miracle, at the Red 
Sea, at Gadara, at Olivet, she first certifies to the 
record, and then accepts and teaches it. Now one 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 145 

of her sons devotes his studies to the prophets, now 
to the Gospels, now to the Epistles, and now to the 
primitive records of mankind and the early Chris- 
tians. 

• 4. Whether St. Paul's writings stimulate and 
exalt the religious sense is not enough for the 
Church to know, but she is bound to know, from 
reasonable evidence of their date, style, character, 
and earl j acceptance, that they are the writings of 
St. Paul. That is the scientific method. So of the 
Epistles of St. Peter and St. John and of the 
Fourth Gospel. 

There are confessedly some old Apocryphal writ- 
ings which are true as history, true and elevating in 
ethic, but which are not accounted by the Church 
universal as inspired ; for they never received pro- 
phetic endorsement and attestation. Hence, despite 
their quality, they are not included in the canon of 
Holy Scripture. 

We all remember the recent work of the revisers 
of the Old and ISIew Testament ; that some four- 
score scholars were long engaged in deciding upon 
their text and its proper translation into modern 
English ; and that in several instances they elim- 
inated portions of the text ; for example, St. John 
8 : 1-11 ; 1 Ep. St. John 5 : 7-9 ; the Doxology 
to the Lord's Prayer following St. Matt. (> : 13, 
with other lesser changes. These we may examine 
for ourselves and judge of the method and its re- 
sult, while we assume no superior learning. A text 
7 



146 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

has been furnished which for the most part is up to 
modern scholarship, and bears the test of Greek 
criticism. 

For the reasons that the Church allows such 
emendation of canonical Scripture, she rejects tfre 
story of Augustine, that the flesh of the peacock 
never decays, for which Mr. Burroughs laughs at 
the saint. But to hold the Church responsible for 
it is extremely unjust. 

Since the Council of Nicaea, the assembled Church 
has never promulgated a mere opinion as a doctrine 
of salvation, or necessary to be believed. Rather 
has she inquired in the true scientific way, What 
was taught in the beginning ? How did the early 
teachers and bishops understand the question ? 
What is the teaching of Scripture about it ? Neither 
primitive Christianity nor the Orthodox Christian- 
ity of to-day requires men to believe in the develop- 
ment of doctrines of salvation. These were revised 
and authenticated by our Lord and His Apostles, 
and they may not be added to or diminished. 
Questions of polity and of discipline may be changed 
or modified to suit the times, but the whole Church 
assembled in Council has no power to change doc- 
trines of salvation. 

So St. Paul, in Gal. 1 : 8, " Though we, or an 
angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gos- 
pel other than that which we have preached unto 
you, let him be anathema ;" and he repeats the 
curse for so doing in the next verse. The doctrines 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 147 

of salvation were given at the first ; the Church 
and her heralds are but the teachers of the Glad 
Tidings, which never change. No law of reversion 
pertains to Christ, but He enjoins His people to go 
on unto perfection in the Faith once delivered to 
them. Ours it is to ask what was first taught ; how 
that teaching has been preserved ; and whether we 
now have trustworthy records of it ? We may reject 
all later additions and insertions to the Creed of 
Christ and the primitive Church. Such is the sci- 
entific method applied to theology and to Christian 
history. It is the law of religious phenomena 
whereby we may weigh the spiritual manifestations. 
5. And when we consider intellectual processes 
and achievements, what becomes of our science ? 
We find in Macbeth and in the Comus what no 
previous writer of our tongue had led us to expect, 
a sort of literary miracle. There is a touch and a 
fancy quite unexpected, something which our soul 
appropriates as well as our mind. It is immortal as 
mind. It is not merely the words we read, but their 
deeper meaning disclosed by their setting. Yet 
there was nothing in the times and the unfold- 
ings which environed Shakespeare and Milton that 
would naturally produce such work. In other 
words, their work was not expected before they ex- 
emplified their talents. And so it has been with all 
great achievements of the mind. The material 
wonders of Morse and Edison were only guessed as 
possible after the experiments of Franklin and New- 



148 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

ton and Francis and Roger Bacon. Chemistry and 
physics are prophetic of mysterious phenomena, and 
miracle is merged in expectation. In the material 
world the unexpected rarely happens. We have 
forecasts of the weather, and of this or that discov- 
ery. But none of these discoverers of telephones 
and continents can sing like the Bard of Avon and 
of Paradise Lost. 

So in the Sermon on the Mount there is purity 
unexcelled and nobility of sentiment unsurpassed, 
which uttered in that age and in that " outlandish 
corner of Judaea' ' are even more wonderful than the 
originality. And if we consider it a Divine proph- 
ecy of the ethics which shall yet prevail on this 
earth, that surely makes its utterance then all the 
more wonderful. To be smitten on the one cheek 
and then offer the other to the smiter is a prophecy 
of conduct which concerns the smiter as well as the 
smitten. For it suggests a principle of action be- 
coming operative among men, when the rude hand 
of a smiter shall be as rare a surprise as it now is 
for the smitten one to turn the other cheek. It is 
there, more than in the purity and nobility of the 
sentiment, that the Divineness lies and the superi- 
ority of the Speaker consists. He, with all the hu- 
man odds and environment against Him, then ut- 
tered a code of ethics which He foresaw would 
become the heritage and the rule of mankind. Mil- 
ton, in the " Comus," was only a copyist of that 
prophecy. To the sister is ascribed that deep- 






APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 149 

souled purity, that true unsuspicion of evil, which 
makes her strong against a thousand dangers. Of 
the power of magic she had no experience and no 
fears, but her more knowing brothers were all the 
more anxious for her rescue. They feared to trust 
perfect, but inexperienced innocence with a con- 
summate trickster, whose strength might win the 
mastery. And the rule is safe for all untried char- 
acters. 

But we are told of One who did resist a con- 
summate master in all wicked arts, and it was be- 
fore He spoke that famous Sermon. Why shall we 
accept His discourses, yet discredit His encounters 
and achievements ? What quality is there in the 
utterance which was not in the Person ? Why shall 
we immortalize His words while we refuse immor- 
tality to Him and to His Person ? But it is be- 
coming the fashion to deny the raising of Lazarus 
and the resurrection of our Lord, though His words 
of comfort to the sisters are admitted to be genuine 
and His later words to His disciples ! There they 
were to end except in memory ! The Soul that 
bore them, the minds of the greatest among men — 
Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Paul, Plato, Pascal — despite 
of all their celestial qualities, are to end like the 
grass or like the grain eaten by a beast ! And 
soul-powers which are perfect in their manifesta- 
tions to the last moment of mortal life shall cease 
like the herbage of the field when cut down on a 
sunny day, and their life go out with the sunset ! 



150 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

And this because of our ignorance, and that we 
have had no experience of continued life other than 
in our posterity, or in posthumous reputation ! 

6. We saw how the mental achievements were 
unexpected till accomplished by those whom we have 
named ; we have seen and known how much in life 
is taken upon trust, and that in the world of matter 
its analysis, nomenclature, classifications, are also 
taken upon trust in what others have done in their 
several lines of work, and that systems and sciences 
are built upon them from Copernicus to Kepler, 
Newton, Darwin, and Spencer ; why then may we 
not proceed in similar lines of discovery in the realm 
of mind and soul and God ? Why shall we stumble 
at " Thy brother shall rise again," " Whosoever 
believeth in Me shall never die !" since upon the 
uniform testimony of all who knew Him — five hun- 
dred at one time — He who spoke those new words 
did actually Himself rise again ? Every recurrence 
of Easter, every Lord's day, certifies to it as surely 
as that the Passover testifies to the Exodus ! The 
Hebrew had his Passover and the restoration of the 
son of the widow of Zarephath ; but the Christian 
has the daughter of Jairus, the widow's son at 
Nain, Brother Lazarus, Jesus in His Resurrection 
and Ascension, all testifying to the power and truth 
of Him who restored life. 

As we receive the records of the Old Testament 
and of the New upon testimony which has been 
thoroughly probed, we follow the scientific method 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 151 

as closely as any scientist who accepts the findings 
and classifications of others ; indeed, more so, for 
the Church has borne constant witness to what she 
received, while the investigations of scientists have 
been but occasional and sporadic. They have no 
perpetual witness like that of Hebrew and Chris- 
tian writers. So even the Resurrection was not 
a new experience. The new thing about it was 
that one should come to life and rise from the grave 
without the intervention of known personal agency. 
Other revivifications were by recognized prophets 
like Elijah, Elisha, and by Him who, after raising 
others, was Himself raised from the grave. Indeed, 
St. Matthew says that the Pharisees expected this, 
and by the order of Pilate went and made the sep- 
ulchre sure, sealing the stone to make it safe, the 
guard being with them (27 : 63-66). And the 
earliest Christian art, as well as preaching, agrees in 
the representation. The resurrection of Jesus 
Christ was expected, and had been foretold. The 
only question for us is, are the accounts true ? 

Hence, we also ask, are the accounts true that 
Columbus discovered any part of America and 
that Sir Walter Raleigh found potatoes and tobacco 
here, which were new to Europeans \ Or shall we 
take those accounts like the humorous story of 
Charles Lamb of how the Chinese first learned of 
roast pig ? He, however, does not deny the previ- 
ous existence of pigs. Nor did Raleigh deny the 
existence of potatoes and tobacco. But they were 



152 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

a new experience with him. Yet a " scientist" 
lately dogmatizes that, u What we know, we know 
only through the senses!" How, then, can we 
know who discovered America ? or whether Euro- 
peans first learned of potatoes and tobaceo from the 
American Indians ? or whether Caesar ever con- 
quered Britain ? or whether the Declaration of In- 
dependence was written by those who are said to 
have written it ? How does the scientist know the 
true from the spurious ? whether his coffee is gen- 
uine or adulterated ? whether his sugar is from cane 
or corn ? his paper made of cotton or linen, and his 
cloth dyed with Indigo or Prussian blue ? Scien- 
tists, like Christians, take much of their knowledge 
at second hand. Both largely depend upon the 
testimony of others. If one can demonstrate a 
fact, the other feels the witness to what he be- 
lieves abiding within him (1 Ep. St. John 3 
and 4). 

7. Yet he is not all heart and feeling and subjec- 
tivity. He believes in objective truths, doctrines, 
and revelations which were duly certified to in old 
times by Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezra, 
by our Lord and His Apostles. The testimony has 
received continuous certifications in its passage 
through the centuries. This is but the alphabet of 
our religion. All theologians of repute maintain 
the necessity of belief in the objective revelation of 
God as well as in subjective faith in Christ ; in re- 
ligious truth as well as religious feeling. And so the 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 153 

witness in the soul of a devout man testifies to the 
power of a great Saviour. Behold the martyrs ! 

Thus, he who decries the scientific method in 
Christians exemplifies his ignorance of Christian 
training in the principles of investigation. We 
deprecate all mere assumption and the blind follow- 
ing of a theory. We require proof of all we be- 
lieve. We are taught to " read, mark, learn, and 
inwardly digest ;' ' to be ever ready to give to the 
inquirer a reason for our belief ; to prepare in time 
for the joys and unfoldings of eternity. We are to 
know Him in whom we believe ; to worship an ob- 
jective God by means of an objective agency such 
as we find in the Church. 

If it be said that the Church has no original copy 
of the Holy Scriptures, it must not be forgotten 
that she was the living witness to their authenticity 
when first given ; so that for the Scriptures of the 
time of David we have her living testimony in that 
age, so of the time of Hezekiah, of Jeremiah, and 
of Ezra ; men of learning quite competent to do so 
passed upon the Scriptures of that time ; they had 
the living testimony of those who received the writ- 
ten Word, and God bore them witness. 

Then of the Septuagint at the close of the third 
century B.C., the witnessing Church certified to the 
Sacred Writings and accepted a translation which 
to-day asserts itself, and is becoming more and 
more recognized as of equal authority with the He- 
brew text. Schrader claims that the more exact 
7* 



154 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

forms of Hebrew words and names are those pre- 
served in the Septuagint ; and he cites the Assyrian 
Bin-hidri — i.e., Ben-hadra, in illustration. (SchafTs 
Herzog, sub Benhadad.) 

When we study the era of Origen and of Jerome, 
what is more unscientific than to say that these men 
in their collation and translation of Hebrew and 
Greek Scriptures did not have access to trustworthy 
copies of the ancient text ? Why, the " Hexapla" of 
Origen proves the contrary. Athenagoras and Jus- 
tin Martyr are witnesses of the fact. Indeed, Cuvier, 
Darwin, and Spencer collate supposed facts and 
specimens to elucidate their theories which have 
not a tenth part of the evidence of genuineness as 
have the Hebrew and Greek text which we receive 
to-day. There were schools of the prophets from 
Samuel to Jeremiah ; while from Ezra to Matta- 
thias, and from our Lord to Jerome, the Church, 
Plebrew and Christian, testified to the Sacred 
Books. What facts of science or of history are 
more strongly attested ? 

One-half of the three years' course in our theo- 
logical seminaries is devoted to Biblical and Church 
history, to evidences which authenticate the genuine- 
ness and credibility of the Old and New Testament, 
to the rules and principles of correct interpretation. 
Some knowledge of the languages in which the Bible 
was written is required, not as an exercise in grammar 
and syntax, but the better to understand that Bible 
and how to explain it correctly. Christianity has a 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 155 

history as well as offices, functions, and usages ; and 
these are to be studied along with the Scriptures 
upon which it is founded. Indeed, how to reach a 
correct exegesis of Scripture is much longer dwelt 
upon than how to preach to the people. The 
method is scientific, even if the preaching is poor. 

However, they who have never taken such a 
course are not the men to lecture the Church on how 
to apply the scientific method to exposition of the 
Bible. It cannot be done in a sermon of a Sunday. 
To explain the creation of man in Genesis by the 
legend of Bel's head being cut off, and the blood 
which flowed from his body being mixed with the 
earth or clay from which the first man was God- 
made and endowed with the Divine life, will be 
easier to do after the Chaldean account in Genesis 
is more generally known. 

So of Gen. 3 : 15. The old Hindus had a sav- 
iour and serpent-killer in Krishna, one of their 
Avatars, who " was not altogether invulnerable, for 
when he crushed the head of the serpent of Jumna 
he was poisoned in the heel, ai d was cured only by 
drinking the milk of the goddess Parvati Durga, the 
Warrior, from whose eye the goddess Kalli sprang 
in complete armor, like Minerva from the head of 
Jupiter." See the collocation of " Legends of a 
Redeemer" in " God Enthroned in Redemption," 
pp. 7-37. The variations in the legends emphasize 
the truth of our Genesis, while the legends of early 
belief in God and His worship overturn Mr. 



156 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

Spencer's theory of the evolution of religion among 
men. 

In all phenomena, spiritual and material, objec- 
tive or subjective, the first inquiry is for the evi- 
dence upon which the manifestations depend. As 
in the case of the demoniac of Gadara, we are told 
who was the Healer, what was the disease, and the 
subject of it. We have Christ, an evil spirit, and 
the man possessed. It is no more wonderful than 
other instances of healing, except that an evil power 
or entity had been permitted to enter and possess a 
man. Is this any more marvellous than the evil 
power, called the serpent, which entered Eden and 
tempted Mother Eve ? Admit the first recorded 
instance of Satanic influence, and all that follow are 
quite explicable. What became of the expelled 
demon is of no account. He was not destroyed, 
but only expelled ; and not being disabled, he went 
and took possession of another, or rather the legion 
possessed another company of creatures. The his- 
tory of the occurrence, if it stand the test of being 
a truthful record, must be received just as we ac- 
cept any other narrative, as, for example, the his- 
tory of the martyrs. And every martyrdom for 
Jesus Christ attests His life and works, as well as 
the faith of the martyred and the doctrines of 
Christianity. There is a joint testimony of the ob- 
jective and subjective. 

But because we to-day have no experience of such 
healing and such martyrdom we ought not to call 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 15? 

it unscientific to believe they ever occurred ; for 
they were just as real at the time as the inscriptions 
on Egyptian tombs and the tablets of Babylonia, 
which were long buried out of sight. The testi- 
mony of primitive man and of contemporary his- 
tory may be as credible as what we see about us. 
And there are universal beliefs, concepts, records, 
legends which, because they are so universal, must 
be regarded as true. Among these is belief in evil 
spirits in Eden, in Babylon, in Egypt and Iran. 
Every ancient people had a devil of some sort. 
Every ancient literature embodies the idea as a fact, 
and also how to cure its hurt and evade its power. 
The thought is no more prevalent or potent in Judsea 
than in Egypt, in Bactria, and in Babylonia. So it 
becomes as clearly the affirmation of science as any- 
thing propounded by Darwin or H. Spencer. The 
attestations of universal mankind must be accepted 
as scientific and in the highest degree credible. In- 
deed, a true record commands belief. See chapter 
4, touching Legends of Evil Spirits in " God in 
Creation." 

8. Recent discovery of ancient facts also confirms 
the fact and the time of the Sojourn in Egypt. 
Thus, R. S. Poole has called attention to Mr. 
Groff's identification of two names of prominence in 
the Pentateuch, in the lists of Karnak, among the 
tribes made prisoners at Megiddo by Thothmes III. 
— viz., Jacob-El and Joseph-El, transposed or short- 
ened a little. Some Hebrews during this obscure 



158 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

period were engaged in border wars and even in 
military service abroad. This is consonant with the 
story of the death of Ephraim's sons in a border 
foray (1 Chron. 7 : 20, 21), and the fact that the 
Israelites marched out of Egypt in battle array (Ex. 
13 : 18). The American Register, of Paris, re- 
marks of the report to the Academy of Inscriptions 
and Belles Lettres, after a thorough discussion of 
the subject, that, "It is more than likely — and in 
this consists the great value of this new version — 
that in this fact we have gained a clew to an episode 
in the history of the children of Israel between their 
arrival in Egypt and exodus." 

It means that Thothmes III. in his wars in Pal- 
estine captured two persons who were worshippers 
of El, and were probably Hebrews. One bore the 
name Jacob, the other Joseph, named after those 
patriarchs. They were carried to Egypt by Thoth- 
mes III. in the sixteenth century b.c. Our Bible 
Jacob was already dead, and Thothmes may have 
been the " king who knew not Joseph," a successor 
of those who expelled the Hyksos. 

The mummy of Sekenen-Ka, who had been mor- 
tally wounded in the contest, and that of Rameses II. 
were found in a vault near Thebes in 1881. And 
Barneses II. took great pains to erase the names of 
Hyksos and other kings from the statues at Bubastis, 
and to inscribe his own in their place. Miss Ed- 
wards shows that Joseph served under two kings. 
The first of them was Apepi, who probably killed 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 159 

Sekenen-Ra. Other findings disclose that the Is- 
raelites were held in servitude after the expulsion 
of the shepherd kings. 

M. Naville, as the result of Egyptian explora- 
tion work, in 1885 rehabilitated old Pithom, its thick 
walls and edifices built by the Israelites, some bricks 
with straw and some without straw, when the heavy 
hand of liameses II. lay hard upon them. His 
name is the oldest of any one found in this border 
fort and store-city. It was his own work, and not, 
as at Bubastis, an usurpation, the name of Rameses 
II. inscribed on the work of his predecessors. 
Pithom, indeed, now certifies to the name of the 
Pharaoh and Exodus to the people who built it. 
Thus, the recovered works and the ancient record 
supplement each other. The bricks prove their 
builders and when they wrought. 

In Schrader's " Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. 
2, p. 147, we learn that Jonah must have lived and 
delivered his message to the Ninevites a century 
before Sargon II. built Khorsabad. Under him 
Nineveh embraced Kalah, Rehoboth, and Dur- 
Sarrukin. Including these towns, the circumference 
of the capital would be about ninety miles, or more 
than three days' journey for a footman, more nearly 
Hve days' journey. So the population, including 
120,000 that could not discern between right and 
wrong, or under eight years of age, is not overesti- 
mated in Jonah 4 : 11 ; nor its greatness of three 
days' journey round it in 3 : 3, 4. Our scientific 



160 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

method confirms the text. We find illustrations in 
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and India of the historical 
and prophetical portions of Scripture. 

We have to deal with matters far more tangible 
than sentiment, feelings, and emotions ; we have dog- 
matic formulas, historical records, and a God-given 
Revelation to prove and illustrate. Consideration 
of comparative religion is quite young, but it must 
receive attention, and so of different forms of Chris- 
tianity. What is the effect of dogma in Scotland 
and in Italy ? What is the outcome of Creed or 
the want of Creed in America ? Where there is a 
blending of Creed with Conduct are the people 
more soundly Christian in faith and works ? What 
is the relation between doing the will and knowing 
the doctrine ? 

9. How can we meet the statement that " the 
Resurrection is a myth which is kept alive because 
mankind have such a profound interest in beliey- 
ing it ? " Thus, for example : The Resurrection is 
but the authentication by Jesus Christ of life with- 
out the body, in which men have believed ever since 
fossil men provided an eternal habitation for their 
dead, and placed amulets in the skulls of the de- 
ceased in order to secure happiness and exemption 
from evil in the disembodied state ; in which men 
showed their belief by the judgment scenes of 
Amenti in Egypt, in the Realm of Allat, and Life 
Eternal in the land of the silver sky of Babylonia, 
and in various legends touching immortality ; all 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 161 

which are unfolded in " God in Creation" and in 
" Bible Growth and Religion." It was believed 
before Abraham lived or the Lord arose, before 
St. Paul preached it, or Athenagoras was converted 
to it, or Justin Martyr died for it ; and it has be- 
come the accepted belief of many who had been un- 
believers, from the first to the nineteenth century. 

But this should not prevent a scientific searching 
for the facts of history and the phenomena of the 
Spirit of God, so that others may know why Chris- 
tians to-day believe in the Resurrection of their 
Lord, and that His followers eighteen hundred years 
ago so believed. That we now have no experience 
of such events is really no more oppugn ant to the 
facts than, because continents are not now discov- 
ered and Britain is not now conquered, therefore 
the story of Columbus and of Julius Caesar is false ! 
Yet doubters of old came to believe in it. As well 
might the Indian deny salt and sugar to be in use any- 
where before Europeans brought them to his notice. 
As well might the East Indian prince deny the 
veracity of the traveller who told him that in his 
country the water became so hard in winter that 
men walked on it and so crossed over rivers ! Pre- 
cisely so is it with them who " know only what they 
know through the senses." The senses, indeed, 
disclose only a small part of human knowledge. 

10. Moreover, may we not trust to our intuitions 
and soul perceptions as well as to what we know 
through our sense perceptions ? So that when we 



162 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

have done with glaciers and moths, protoplasm and 
materialistic studies, with all other human culture, 
learning and proving all that we can ever learn and 
prove, we may have the assurance not only of rest, 
but of blessedness. For seeds die to live again in 
plant and flower ; from dying life to springing life 
is the law of the things we see about us. Nature 
does not disappoint proper expectations. She is no 
more cruel than she is kind : she is Nature. 

Why, then, shall the minds she has matured and 
ripened, the souls she has filled with thoughts of God 
and longings for immortality, have no continuance in 
that environment where they can best unfold their 
possibilities % More surely than the boyhood of 
Shakespeare and Milton prophesied of their future 
achievements does the spirit of a thoughtful man 
prophesy of the opportunities which shall hereafter 
be afforded him. 

Neither the be-all nor the end-all is here and now 
for any man of aspiration and soul growing quali- 
ties. If in his studies of things and of life, of suns 
and star% he also studies soul life and spiritual be- 
ing, he will come to know what soul life is, and that 
there is for him a never-ending life with One who 
Himself rose from the dead. Because He lives, 
shall all who believe in Him live also. But how 
can these things be ? Yes, how can you color an 
apple or perfume a rose ? Why is your child's eye 
blue when your own is brown ? Why is ice formed 
in winter and the sheep shorn every spring \ Be- 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 163 

cause it is according to the law of their being. So 
it is according to the law of being a Christian that 
he shall live foreverniore with the Lord who ran- 
somed him from death. Re is the Resurrection 
and the life for all believers. His ways are from 
everlasting to everlasting. All who hunger and 
thirst for immortality shall find it in Him. His 
was an opened grave ! There was a vision of An- 
gels ! They were seen in Eden ; they were seen 
by Abraham and Jacob ; they appeared in the Gar- 
den, and again at Olivet. Is not that sufficient at- 
testation { Doubt not His power. It is the law of 
spiritual phenomena. Spiritual life is dependent 
upon the Giver of it. Because He lives, you shall 
live also. 

Thus have we sought to illustrate how the scien- 
tific method may be applied to the study of the 
Bible, to the doctrines of salvation, and the desire 
for immortality. Said Victor Hugo : " Winter is 
on my head and eternal spring is within my heart. 
The violets and the roses are beautiful as ever. 
The fragrance finds capacity of enjoyment. The 
grave is but a thoroughfare ; it closes with the sun- 
set and opens with the dawn.' ' Says another poet : 

u Every noblest aspiration 
Is God's angel, undefiled, 
And in every ' my Father ! ' 
Slumbers deep a ' Here, my child ! ' " 

Thus there is an eternal tendency in men to de- 



164 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

sire and pray for admittance to that abode where 
life " immortal blooms." 

To see that I have not overstated the assumptions 
and dependence of science, the reader may compare 
Professor J. T. Huxley on " The Advance of Sci- 
ence the last Half Century." On page 34 he says, 
" Any one who is practically acquainted with scien- 
tific work is aware that those who refuse to go be- 
yond fact rarely get as far as fact ; and any one 
who has studied the history of science knows that 
almost every great step therein has been made by 
the ' anticipation of nature' — that is, by the inven- 
tion of hypotheses w T hich, though verifiable, often 
had very little foundation to start with, and turned 
out wholly erroneous in the long run." 

Mr. Huxley illustrates this by the guesses of 
astronomy, of which Kepler's was the wildest ; by 
several hypotheses of Newton's ; for observation 
cannot go beyond the limit of our faculties ; while 
even within those limits we cannot be certain that 
any observation is absolutely exact and exhaustive. 
And our observation at one time may prove untrue 
when our powers, directly or indirectly, are en- 
larged. 

Kepler's assumption that the planets moved in 
ellipses was only an approximate truth ; for as a 
fact, the centre of gravity of a planet describes 
neither an ellipse nor any other simple curve, but an 
immensely complicated undulating line. It may be 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 165 

doubted whether any generalization based npon 
physical data is absolutely true. The invention of 
verifiable hypotheses is not only permissible, but is 
one of the conditions of progress (pp. 35 -38), for 
Mr. Huxley knows through the senses, and through 
guesses and assumptions ! Beyond that even meta- 
physical theology does not venture. 

In the ideas and definitions of matter, atomic, 
molecular, cosmic ; of force and motion, he shows 
it is questionable whether science to-day has much 
advanced beyond that of Aristotle twenty-three 
centuries ago. We may describe our 65 to 68 rec- 
ognized " elements," but whether they all run into 
atoms or ether, into molecules or gases cannot be 
determined ! The name " New Chemistry" is very 
significant (pp. 40-62). We have also " New As- 
tronomy" and " New Physics" after five thousand 
years' study and observation ! 

Modern protoplasm does not prove the assumption 
of " spontaneous generation ;" for it " has utterly 
broken down in every case which has been properly 
tested. Yet belief in it was accepted by all philos- 
ophers down to the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, when Redi shook it to its foundations; 
Schwann and others proved it to be untrustworthy 
just fifty years ago" (pp. 118, 119). 

Thus this corypheus of modern science guesses 
and assumes as true a thousandfold more than a 
dozen orthodox expositors of the Bible. He and 
they alike depend upon testimony. 



166 THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 

But while Professor Huxley denies the claims of 
Mr. Burroughs, he, in a recent Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, shows himself as reckless of historic testimony 
as he is daring in assumptions for science. He fails 
to see that whether the Canon of St. Paul's in 1890 
agrees with the Canon of St. Paul's thirty years 
before it does not affect the now historical fact of 
the literary attainments of Babylonians and Egyp- 
tians 2500 to 3000 years b.c., nor of the Bible 
patriarchs 2000 to 1500 b.c. So, his scorn of an- 
cient legends in Babylon and Egypt will not avail 
to minimize the " stories' ' of Genesis. For they 
are as well founded as his guesses of science. 

If 2 + 2 + 4 = 8 in science, why do they not 
equal the same in history ? Our religion rests upon 
the testimony of patriarchs and prophets and na- 
tional records during two thousand years, and of at 
least one million other Hebrews during fifteen hun- 
dred years ; of Jesus and His apostles and the first 
century Christians. Now, if we may not believe 
their testimouy as handed down through those ages, 
neither may we believe any allegation of science or 
of secular history during those ages, nor anything 
which Professor Huxley alleges of the ancient 
philosophers ; for their testimony is no more credi- 
ble than that of Hebrew and Christian religionists. 

Since his " Half Century" essay in 1887 we are 
quite prepared for any historical assumptions or de- 
nials in another essay in the middle of 1890. He 
appears not to know that the demonstrations of his- 



APPLIED TO THE BIBLE. 167 

tor j require us to accept as true as any science the 
records of Babylonia and Egypt in the third millen- 
nium b.c, and of the Bible patriarchs in the second 
millennium b.c. And he probably discerns the 
sophistry of his own attempt to make the Bible re- 
sponsible for the miscalculations of biblical chronol- 
ogists ! It nowhere says, Now the Flood occurred 
1600 years after the creation of the World ! 

The Independent of August 28th, 1890, prints a 
letter from Prof. A. H. Sayce, a short extract from 
which must end this chapter : 

" The discoveries made by Mr. Petrie prove that in Palestine, 
as in Egypt and Assyria, there are monuments of the past hid- 
den beneath the soil which go back not only to the age of the 
Kings, but even to that older Canaanitish period which pre- 
ceded the invasion of the Israelites. Among the cuneiform 
tablets found at Tel el-Amarna, in Egypt, are dispatches from 
the Governor of Lachish to the Egyptian monarch. The dis- 
patches imply that there was an Archive-chamber in which 
their duplicates and the answers to them were preserved. It 
is more than possible that the Archive-chamber with its pre- 
cious contents may still be lying within the walls discovered by 
Mr. Petrie, awaiting only a few more weeks of digging to be 
brought to light. Inscriptions and sculptured monuments will 
yet be found to pour floods of unexpected light upon the rec- 
ords of the Old Testament." 



IV. 



ANCIENT BABYLONIANS AND EGYP- 
TIANS NOT TOTEMISTS. 

As in recent public lectures upon Egypt the 
speaker asked whether totemism did not early exist 
in the land of the hawk and the crocodile, which 
were symbols of their gods, 1 offer a few facts which 
may suggest that such could not be so in primitive 
times. Yet very early in history misconceptions of 
the story of the serpent in Eden travelled far and 
wide, and led to its adoration. It symbolized the 
Deity. Still, in Babylonia, in Egypt, and under 
the Theocracy of the Hebrews there ever existed 
two important facts of a character opposed to to- 
temism : First, the monarchy ; and second, the in- 
termarriage of kindred and members of the same 
tribe or clan. Egyptians even killed their supposed 
totems, which are often confounded with religious 
symbols. These facts are opposed to totemism. 
Kings, from the mythical Osiris to Thothmes II., in 
the sixteenth century b.c, and much later, married 
their sisters. It was a common practice among the 
Pharaohs. So in old Chaldea Abraham married 



NOT TOTEMISTS. 169 

his half-sister, which serves to illustrate the custom 
there at that time ; while Isaac and Jacob married 
their cousins. This practice does not coexist with 
totemism, which forbids such marriages. (See 
" Encyclopedia Britannica," art. Totemism.) 

Nor does monarchy coexist with totemism. Yet 
from the earliest times, from Osiris to Menes and 
Sneferu, kings reigned in Egypt ; while from Nim- 
rod to Khammuragas and Sargon I. kings reigned 
in Babylonia. Among the early Hebrews God was 
their King. This continued from Abraham to Saul 
and David. 

Again, before historic times, the myths tell us of 
Horus, who speared the crocodile, one of the sup- 
posed early totems of Egypt, and her sculptures 
graphically portray him in the act of spearing a ser- 
pent. Babylonian legends describe Bel-Merodach 
as fighting against the old dragon-totem of that 
country, and the cylinders vividly represent the 
fierce combat. Iranian Bactria had her Sosiosh, 
who turned evil into good, who slew serpents and 
scorpions, and wrought redemption for her people ; 
while the Indian Krishna killed the huge serpent of 
Jumna. See chapter 1 of " God Enthroned in Re- 
demption." 

Thus, from the nature of the case and the op- 
pugnancy between rival powers, totemism could not 
coexist with monarchy nor with intermarriage be- 
tween kinsmen and clansmen. If the totem were 
anything more than a symbol or ensign, it could 



170 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 

not be tolerated within a monarchy, for the king 
was superior to all other earthly powers. His su- 
perior was the celestial Being known as God- Amun, 
God Osiris, God-Ea, God-Il, or God-Merodach, 
whose worship excluded all place and scope for dei- 
fied totems. And the custom of intermarriage be- 
tween the tribes and clans of a kingdom largely neg- 
atived and precluded the possible union of rival 
gods. The totemism found among our Indians and 
others in modern times is far too late to illustrate 
the worship of totems in ancient Babylonia and in 
Egypt. 

It is interesting to note that Thothmes III., of 
the first half of the sixteenth century B.C., was the 
maker of the obelisk which is now in our Central 
Park. He was a famous Pharaoh of one of the 
best defined periods of Egyptian history. Yet, 
singularly enough, Mr. H. Spencer cites him to il- 
lustrate his theory of ancestor-worship, and connects 
him quite closely with the builder of the Great 
Pyramid, which was a thousand years before him, 
even according to the shorter chronology — i.e., of 
the fourth dynasty. 

The Egyptian poet-laureate makes the god Am- 
nion to address Thothmes III. as " the blazing sun, 
shining like a god before the enemy ; as a young 
bull which none can approach ; as a crocodile, ter- 
rible in the waters, not to be encountered ; as a 
lion, fierce of eye, who leaves his den and stalks 
through the valley ; as the hovering hawk which 



NOT TOTEMISTS. 171 

seizes whatever pleases him ; and as the jackal of 
the South, who prowls through the land." Mr. 
Spencer adds the epithet of an older translation, 
calling him " the valiant bull Horus, reigning over 
the Thebaid." 

I fail to discover ancestor worship or any form of 
totemism in these appellatives. Thothmes has here 
seven different characters attributed to liim, and is 
addressed by the names of five supposed totems ; 
also as the Sun and as Horus ; the last two having 
well-defined positions and origins. It is a compar- 
ison which contains its own refutation. 

Moreover, Hatasu, the sister of Thothmes III., 
calls herself " the living Horus, abounding in divine 
gifts, the mistress of diadems, rich in years (she was 
then under forty), the golden Horus, Queen of 
Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the Sun (her 
father was Thothmes I.), consort of Ammon (she had 
married her own brother, Thothmes II.). She also 
called herself " the daughter of Ammon, dwelling 
in his heart, and living forever !" The self -adula- 
tion is too apparent for remark. 

The royal brother and sister use some of the same 
titles indifferently. They are each Horus, the liv- 
ing Horus, or the golden Horus, or the valiant bull 
Horus. They are the son of a god, and the daugh- 
ter of a god, though their parents (Thothmes I. and 
his consort) were well known. Not worshippers of 
their ancestors, they most extravagantly extol them- 
selves by means of their acknowledged deity. The 



172 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 

" Queen of diadems and daughter of the Sun" was 
the sister of him who is styled " crocodile, hawk, 
bull, lion, jackal," all by the same rhapsodist. 
Not a word of prayer is uttered, nor sacrifice offered, 
only self -gloriii cation, in Oriental exuberance, is 
expressed. Truly, may we not say that the builder 
of our New York obelisk and his sister Hatasu are 
sufficient answers to totemism in ancient Egypt ? 

While they adored the Sun-god and worshipped 
Amnion, they assuredly did not worship their pro- 
genitors. Moreover, the' earliest Egyptian kings 
speared the totem-crocodile, and the earliest Baby- 
lonian kings hunted the lion, while the monarchs 
of both regions pursued other beasts of prey and 
attributed to themselves the striking characteristics 
of those animals. So we say " Richard of the 
Lion's Heart," the " Black" Prince, " Rough and 
Ready," " Stonewall" Jackson, etc. The reader 
will find much condensed information touching an- 
cient religions in " God Enthroned in Redemption" 
and in " Bible Growth and Religion." " Records 
of the Past" and Brugsch's " Egypt" give the 
laudation of Thothmes III. 

Moreover, the Sabeans of Arabia, the rise™ of 
whose kingdom Hommel puts at about 900 B.C., 
worshipped the sun, and also Sin, the moon -god, as 
well as Istar or Astarte. One of the tribes wor- 
shipped the sun under the form of an eagle, another 
under the form of a horse, and a third tribe under 
the form of a lion. This was a thousand years after 



NOT TOTEMISTS. 173 

Abraham, and discloses the development of relig- 
ious worship in a direction very different from that 
claimed by totemists and evolutionists. But we are 
told that " Jewish influence made itself felt in the 
future birthplace of Mahomet, and introduced 
those ideas and beliefs which subsequently had so 
profound an effect upon the birth of Islam " {Old 
and New Testament Student for March, 1890). 
Yet that was not till Christianity had long influ- 
enced Jewism. The actual course was from the re- 
ligion of Abraham to that of ninth century b.c. to- 
temism, thence to Jewism as influenced by Chris- 
tianity at the rise of the prophet of Arabia, in 
622 a.b. 

Professor W. Robertson Smith, in his " Religion 
of the Semites," may deceive himself and his read- 
ers into supposing that the Arabians are fair illus- 
trations of a theory of totemism and the evolution 
of a monotheistic religion. But he is much too late 
and fanciful in his citations. For we have evidence 
that two or three thousand years before his Arabians 
appeared in that country, Babylonians on the one 
side, and Egyptians on the other, took possession 
of it, quarried its mines and its hills, inscribed their 
names on the rocks of the Wady Magharah, and 
that Egyptian soldiers worked the turquoise mines 
of Sinai for the benefit of Sneferu or Soris, the 
first of the fourth dynasty. It is much too late to 
turn askance from the evidences of a civilization on 
the Nile and the Euphrates in the third, and even 



174 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 

fourth millennium b.c. It is, therefore, a prime 
necessity for Professor Smith, and those who agree 
with his notions, to explain how contact with it had 
no effect on the Arabians, and also to explain 
whence came those Arabians whom he cites as ex- 
emplars. It were indeed easy to affirm that there 
were no such Arabians in the earliest times, and 
none who had not drifted away from their north- 
eastern or southwestern neighbors. Arabia itself 
was not then peopled, Abraham was not born, and 
his sons by Keturah had not possessed that coun- 
try. The Bible account of its inhabitants makes all 
easy to understand ; but to put a savage people 
there without touch of influence from Babylonians 
or Egyptians is the acme of assumption. (See 
Sayce's " Empires of the East" and Rawlinson's 
-Egypt") 

China, also, which wskpeopled by emigrants from 
Babylonia, in 2300 b.c, and possessed their relig- 
ious cult, has degenerated in her worship. The 
latest writer, the Rev. George Owen, of Pekin, 
gives, in the Chronicle of the London Missionary 
Society, the following graphic account of the dete- 
rioration of the religion of the Chinese : " The his- 
tory of China is a striking instance of the down- 
grade in religion. The old classics of China, going 
back to the time of Abraham, show a wonderful 
knowledge of God. There are passages in those 
classics about God worthy to stand side by side with 
kindred passages in the Old Testament. The fathers 



NOT TOTEMISTS. 175 

and founders of the Chinese race appear to have 
been monotheists. They believed in an omnipotent, 
omniscient, and omnipresent God, the moral Gov- 
ernor of the world and the impartial Judge of man. 

" But gradually the grand conception of a personal 
God became obscured. Nature worship crept in. 
Heaven and earth were deified, and God was con- 
founded with the material heavens and the powers 
of nature. Heaven was called father and earth 
mother, and became China's chief god. Then the 
6un, moon, and stars were personified and worship- 
ped. China bowed down to ' the hosts of heaven.' 
The great mountains and rivers were also deified 
and placed among the state gods. This nature 
worship continues in full force to the present time. 
Nature has taken the place of God. 

" Polytheism and idolatry followed. From the 
dawn of history the Chinese worshipped their an- 
cestors, regarding the dead as in some sort tutelary 
deities. This naturally led to the deification and 
worship of deceased heroes and benefactors, till the 
gods of China, increasing age by age, became legion. 
Her well-stocked pantheon contains gods of all sorts 
and sizes. There are gods of heaven and earth ; 
gods of the sun, moon, and stars ; gods of the 
mountains, seas, and rivers ; gods of fire, war, and 
pestilence, wealth, rank, and literature, horses, cows, 
and insects. 

" But the degradation did not stop here. The 
Chinese sank lower still and became demon wor- 



176 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 

shippers. Charms — long strips of paper bearing 
cabalistic characters in black, green and yellow — 
hang from the lintels of most doors to protect the 
house against evil spirits. Night is often made hid- 
eous and sleep impossible by the firing of crackers 
to frighten away the demons. Almost every village 
has its professional exorcist and devil-catcher. The 
fear of demons is the bugbear of a Chinaman's life, 
and much of his worship is intended to appease 
their wrath and propitiate their favor, and once a 
year, during the seventh moon, a gigantic image of 
the devil himself is carried in solemn procession 
through every town and village, followed by the 
populace, feasted and worshipped. 

" Animal worship, too, is rife. In some parts 
of North China certain animals are more worshipped 
than the most popular gods. The fame of even the 
largest temples is often due not to the gods they 
contain, but to the supposed presence of a fairy fox, 
weasel, snake, hedgehog, or rat. These five ani- 
mals are believed to possess the secret of immortal- 
ity and the power of self -transformation, and to ex- 
ercise great influence over the fortunes of men. 

u I have seen crowds of men, women, and chil- 
dren worshipping at an ordinary fox-burrow, and I 
have seen one of the great gates of Pekin thronged 
day after day with carriages and pedestrians going 
to worship a fairy fox supposed to have been seen 
outside the city walls. Any day small yellow 
handbills may be seen on the walls and boardings 



NOT TOTE MISTS. 177 

of Pekin assuring the people that ' prayer to the 
venerable fairy fox is certain to be answered.' " — 
Spirit of Missions for March, 1890. 

Here we have the descendants of Abraham in 
Arabia and of the ancient Babylonians in China 
testifying against modern theories of the evolution 
of religion. It was not from nature worship to 
Mosaism, which developed into Jewism, which de- 
veloped into Christianity, but the other way 
from the revealed to the debased. Arabia and 
China are our witnesses. 

The mistake of evolutionists of religion lies in 
beginning their inquiries at too late a period. Here 
and there may be found what looks like totemism. 
But it was not so in the earliest ages. For then men 
held a simple belief in One Being to be worshipped. 
Later, from misunderstanding about the Serpent of 
Eden, arose animal- worship and totemism. 

Closely related, if not earlier, was the worship 
of Istar, called Nana in the Accadian texts, Istar 
not being found in them. The first centres of her 
worship were Erech and Accad. She was called 
" the divine Lady of Eden," " the goddess of the 
tree of life," " the goddess of the Vine," etc., 
showing that she was Eve deified. Tammuz is said 
to mean "the son of life," " offspring," " the 
only son," etc. And he was invoked as a shep- 
herd : " O Tarn m n z, shepherd and lord, bridegroom 
of Istar, the lady of heaven, lord of Hades, lord of 
the shepherd's cot," etc. The poem is written in 
8* 



178 BABYLONIANS AND EGYPTIANS 

the artificial dialect which sprang up in the court 
of Sargon I., probably emanating from the city of 
Accad. So Sayce in " Hibbert Lectures" for 1887, 
pp. 232-66. 

The many allusions to life in Eden, to the life of 
Abel, the descent to Hades, Abel's character as a 
shepherd and being invoked by shepherds, suggest 
that " the Lady of Eden and of the tree of life" 
was Mother Eve, thus early deified, and that the 
departed one for whom she mourned was her shep- 
herd son Abel or Tammuz. The earliest legends 
of Istar and Tammuz reach back to primitive times, 
and seem like the very echoes of Eden. So of ser- 
pent worship. It also may be traced to the serpent 
of Eden. 

Mr. H. Spencer draws his examples from the 
later periods. Thus, in his " Ecclesiastical Institu- 
tions" (pp. 692-93), he sees the difficulty that sun 
worship in Egypt creates for his " derivation of all 
beliefs from ancestor worship," and so tries to ex- 
plain away sun worship and the belief that he ever 
had been ruler over Egypt ! Whereas, the early 
legend of Osiris can only be thus accounted for. 
A page of special pleading, with a long note to con- 
vince " theologians and mythologists," will not 
change the fact that in Egypt sun worship preceded 
ancestor worship ; for the sun represented the high- 
est beneficence in nature. Osiris, as Sun-god, was 
before Osiris as Judge of Amenti. And kings 
were first deified only because they were the rep re- 



NOT TOTEMISTS. 179 

sentatives of the Divine order, power, and good- 
ness. Hence adoration of kings preceded adoration 
of ancestors. In primitive history and Old Testa- 
ment exposition the date determines the environ- 
ment and often expounds the text. Hymns to 
Amen-Ra and the Nile are of ancient date ; festal 
dirges belong to the eleventh dynasty ; while, ac- 
cording to Renouf's " Hibbert Lectures," the old- 
est piece of literature in the world is a " Hymn to 
the Maker of Heaven and Earth, Who is the Self- 
existent One." Compare " God in Creation," 
chapter 3, and chapter 1 of this book. 



V. 

MR. GLADSTONE ON HEBREW AND 
GREEK ETHICS. 

(Reprinted from The Standard and The Church.) 

As St. Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached, 
though not quite according to his method, so I re- 
joice that the Rock of Scripture is defended, even 
though imperfectly. Mr. Gladstone has succeeded 
in the breadth of his view and in stating points 
which should satisfy the reader not only as to the 
honesty of his plea, but that the subject is itself 
worthy of all his conceded ability. The homogene- 
ity of the Old Testament, both as to matter and 
spirit, and its preparative character, are of the same 
trend throughout. It was also for the Gentile as 
well as for the Jew, or, as stated in a recent publi- 
cation, for " Jacob and Japheth." 

This book Mr. Gladstone seems not to have read, 
or he would not have fallen into the ethical error of 
his third paper, in rating the ethic of the Hebrew 
as lower than that of the Achaian Greeks. When 
he says that " the conduct of the suitors of Penel- 
ope and the actions of Paris form the worst exhi- 



HEBREW AND GREEK ETHICS. 181 

bitions of human nature which come before us in 
the Poems" of Homer, he overlooks what so good 
a Grecian could not forget, that Penelope herself 
was a striking exception to the prevailing laxity of 
her day, and that Ulysses, her husband, was ill- 
deserving so pure a wife. He also overlooks, what 
he could not forget, that the actions of Paris re- 
ceived large endorsement from his father and family 
then reigning at Troy, for they received him and 
the runaway wife of Menelaus, and refused to sur- 
render her when demanded. 

The " rape of Helen" is a misnomer in modern 
phrase. She eloped voluntarily with her husband's 
guest ; she became the wife of Paris, then of his 
brother Deiphobus, whom she afterward betrayed 
in order to reconcile herself to her first husband. 
If our law about the receiver of stolen goods being 
as bad as the thief is right, the conduct of the ruling 
family at Troy was very reprehensible, for which 
neither the noble heroism of Hector, nor the loyal 
love of Andromache, nor the tears of Priam could 
atone, unless accompanied by restitution. And 
when the Poet introduces Venus to rescue Paris 
from the death-dealing blows of Menelaus, what is 
that but to sanction the adulterer's crime ? 

Knowing all this, Mr. Gladstone should have 
boldly affirmed the lower ethics of the Greeks as 
compared with the Hebrews. He also overlooks 
what he could not forget, that King Agamemnon 
was himself an offender against purity when 



182 MR. GLADSTONE. 

he seized the beautiful captive Briseis, who had 
been awarded to Achilles. That the king had re- 
turned the daughter of the priest upon her father's 
demand did not justify him in seizing the prize of 
his ablest general. And was it less than an aveng- 
ing Nemesis that Agamemnon, upon returning home 
from the war, found his wife an adulteress with 
^Egjsthus, and by them was murdered ? A double 
crime had been committed, far more heinous than 
that of David's, who had not thought of taking life 
in his amour with Bathsheba. Clytemnestra was 
killed for her crimes by her own son ! Diomed, 
another of Homer's heroes, returned home after the 
fall of Troy, but narrowly escaped with his life from 
his adulterous wife, ^Egiale. 

Not to dwell longer upon the morality of Homer's 
people, both men and women, what shall we say of 
the Homeric gods, from Jove to Yenus ? Was not 
Olympus the rendezvous of impurity ? With few 
exceptions its celestial denizens were quite oblivious 
to the observance of chastity. There is not a pure 
boy who has done his first or second year in Greek 
and Latin, unless the course is greatly changed since 
I was a youth, who is not disgusted with the amours 
of the gods and goddesses of the Homeric Age. 

On the wrangling, the deceit and lying of 
Homer's gods, I must refer to Professor G. H. Gil- 
bert's last chapter of his " Poetry of Job," Chi- 
cago, 1889.' 

Mr. Gladstone knows that in the historic period, 



HEBREW AND GREEK ETHICS- 183 

in the acme of Greek culture and attainments, the 
great Pericles lived for years in forbidden relations 
with Aspasia, and before his death accepted it as a 
marked favor that the Athenians legitimatized his 
two bastard boys ! Yet he turns askance from the 
nativity of Pharez and Ruth ! "Ruth, at least, was 
removed by ten generations from the sin of Lot, 
who was not of the covenant seed, and married a 
Canaanitess ; while Pharez was the offspring of a 
single desperate adventure, in order to compel the 
performance of lawful duty ! There was nothing 
in them at all parallel with the sin of Agamemnon 
and Helen, Paris and Clytemnestra, Ulysses and 
^Egiale, Jove and Venus ! 

Moreover, Mr. Gladstone cannot forget that even 
Plato is an offender against good ethics. He allows 
men a community of women, so that the children 
do not know their own fathers ! Indeed children 
were to be brought up in common, without filial or 
parental affection. But I may not dwell on this, 
and should have said less but for the great reputa- 
tion of the writer and the recent strong deliverances 
of Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. So I commend 
them and those who accept their puttings to pages 
71 to 81 of " Bible Growth and Religion from 
Abraham to Daniel." 

In Egypt, in Canaan, in Philistia, the code of 
ethics practised by the early Hebrews was loftier 
and purer than that of those peoples. It was to 
save his wife from dishonor as well as his own life 



184 MR. GLADSTONE. 

that Abraham equivocated with Pharaoh, and with 
Abimelech of Gerar, each of whom sought to add 
Sarah to his harem ! And at the time of his equi v- 
ocation Abraham was but a young Jehovist. It 
was more than twenty years before he received the 
covenant seal of circumcision ; while it was true that 
Sarah was his half sister, who to-day if introduced to 
strangers might be called sister Sarah. Mr. Glad- 
stone overlooks this. He also overlooks how 
Dinah's brothers avenged themselves upon Hamor 
for his treatment of her. Their chastisement of him 
was not the method of men who had low views of 
purity and honor. But centuries later the Philis- 
tines in their treatment of Samson and his bride 
trampled down every law of morality. Yet in his 
frolics and his revenges Samson personally observed 
the duty of good neighborhood. As the avenger 
of Israel upon their oppressors, he acted officially. 
Compare David's treatment of Saul and consult 
the reference above given, also pages 166 to 174. 



JACOB AND JAPHETH. 

Bible Growth from Abraham to Daniel, illustrated by Con- 
temporary History. By the author of "God in 
Creation," etc. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

The Churchman says .' 
" The underlying motive of the book seems to be an answer to 
Renan's Theories of Hebrew History. It certainly succeeds in dealing 
with the French skeptic's reasonings pretty effectually. It shows the 
absurdity of the assumption that Jewish religion was merely self- 
originated, the outcome of special Semitic tendencies. Apart from its 
purpose, this volume is well worth reading, for it is written in a lively 
style, displays a very careful study, and is full of information on Biblical 
topics. It is a book we should especially commend to our readers as 
one likely to guide and help their study of the Bible. It takes just that 
large and comprehensive view which is opposed to the mere study of 
special and isolated verses, and gives the bearing of the earlier books 
of the Old Testament in a very suggestive and thoughtful way." 

The New York Evangelist says : 
' ' The author of ' God in Creation ' and of ' God Enthroned in 
Redemption,' has given us in the present work a further development 
of his fundamental position, which may be briefly characterized as based 
upon that which Squire Wendover denied — the value of the testimony 
of history to revelation. A thorough and searching review of the testi- 
mony establishes very completely that the God of Israel is the very God 
of the whole Earth. The author is familiar with the utterances of the 
Higher Criticism, and with the results of recent researches among the 
cuneiform documents of the East, and he argues very ably and convinc- 
ingly against the theory of late authorship of the Pentateuch and the 
Book of Daniel. Good scholarship, fine critical acumen, sound judg- 
ment, a reasonable faith, characterize this book." 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

God in Creation and in Worship. By a Clergyman. 
i2mo, paper, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents. 

God Enthroned in Redemption. Part Second of "God 
in Creation." The answer of History to modern theo- 
ries of the Evolution of Christianity. i2mo, cloth, 

50 cents. 
Both parts in one volume. i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 



THOMAS WHITTAKER, 

2 and 3 Bible House, New York. 



DIABOLOLOGY. 



THE PERSON AND KINGDOM OF SATAN. 



The Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1889. 

By the Rev. Edward H. Jewett, D.D., LL.D. Second 
Edition. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 

Contents : Lecture I. — Introductory. Lecture II. — Moral Proba- 
tion. Lecture III. — Satanic Personality. Lecture IV. — Parsee and 
Hebrew Views Compared. Lecture V. — ^Christ's Teaching with Regard 
to Evil and the Evil One. Lecture VI.— /The Sixth Petition of the 
Lord's Prayer. 

" The lectures are timely and able, and ought to have a strong in- 
fluence in counteracting the pernicious and baseless modern theory that 
Satan is only the personification of a rflere force. The author's reason- 
ing is unanswerable ; he always is fair to opponents, and he has done 
good and abiding service. His pages are especially rich in researches 
and comparisons which bring out the differences between the Hebrew 
and the Parsee, or other beliefs in regard to Satan and evil spirits in 
general. He seems to quite disprove the hypothesis that the Jews bor- 
rowed the ideas of the Persians on these subjects." 

— The Congregationalist. 

** He has carefully and critically examined the various views and 
teachings on this subject to bring out with great logical clearness the 
truth of the personality of Satan as taught in the New Testament as 
well as in the rest of Holy Scripture." — The Churchman. 

''The author deserves credit for the boldness and clearness with 
which his investigation is conducted." — The Virginia Sent. Magazine: 

"Although written primarily for the scholarly public, the style is 
simple and the language clear and easily comprehensible by the ordinary 
reader. " — The Philadelphia Press. 

" This volume discusses, in a thorough and scholarly manner, the 
question of the personality of spirits, good and evil, their probation, 
and the place assigned to them in the teachings of the Bible." 

— National Baptist. 



THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
2 and 3 Bible House, New York. 



CANON ROW'S NEW BOOK 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 

A Brief and Popular Survey of the Evidences upon which 
it rests, and the Objections urged against it considered and 
refuted. By C. A. Row, M.A. Small 8vo, cloth, $1.75. 

"Prebendary Row has attained high repute by his previous publi- 
cations, but we doubt if he has written anything more likely to be useful 
than the present volume, in which he sets forth in a popular form and 
with clearness and force of style the chief reasons on which Christian 
theistic belief is founded. It is avowedly a popular argument, adapted 
to the needs of the multitude of people who justly complain that many 
excellent treatises dealing with the subject are ' over their heads.' It 
also claims to be a comprehensive survey of the whole question as it is 
now debated, and grapples with current difficulties and objections which, 
if they do not subvert the faith of many, do nevertheless prevail with 
some, and cause widespread disquiet and perplexity." 

— The Standard of the Cross. 

" Among all the works of Prebendary Row in the general line of 
Apologetics of Christian belief, and they are many, this will be the most 
prominent in the list, the most thoroughly and lastingly useful." 

— The Living Church. 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 

Addressed to busy people. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, 75 cents. 

CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE VIEWED IN RELATION TO 
MODERN THOUGHT. Bampton Lectures for 1877. Fourth 
Edition. 8vo, cloth, $3.75. 

A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. i6mo, 
cloth, 75 cents. 

FUTURE RETRIBUTION, VIEWED IN THE LIGHT 
OF REASON AND REVELATION. 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 



THOMAS WHITTAKER, 

2 and 3 Bible House, New York. 



ON ROMANISM. 



Three articles on Romanism. By the Rev. John Henry 
Hopkins, S.T.D. With a useful Index. i2mo, cloth, 

fi.oo. 

"Entertaining reading, without a dull line." — The Churchman. 

" This is a caustic, severe and able arraignment of Romanism." 

— Zion's Herald. 

" Dr. Hopkins' articles form a strong and well stated summary of 
the question." — The Critic. 

"An amazingly brilliant book is this. As far as the correspondence 
with and strictures on Monsignor Capel go, we do not wonder that Dr. 
Hopkins has republished the whole and wound it up with a snapper in 
the shape of his elaborate review of Dr. Littledale triumphant, on the 
' Petrine Claims. ' To outside readers who are not too much enmeshed 
in Roman Catholic sympathies to be able to extract any kind of enjoy- 
ment from the routing of such a serene example of prelatic assumption 
as Monsignor Capel, the whole will be as good as a play." — Independent. 

*' The discussion is exceedingly sharp and lays bare the tremendous 
assumptions of the papacy in regard to the authority of the Pope, and 
the sole right of the Roman Church to the name Catholic." 

— The Lutheran. 

"Dr. Hopkins is bold and sharp, fears nothing, and is especially 
pointed in detecting weak places in an adversary." — Public Opinion. 



THOMAS WHITTAKER, 

2 and 3 Bible House, New York. 




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